Fandorin in English 1-10

‘Yes. What else can we do?’

Neither of us spoke as we stared at each other in mutual perplexity. My mood of exaltation vanished without a trace. A terrible presentiment turned my mouth dry.

Fandorin looked me over from head to foot, as if seeing me for the first time and asked in a curious tone of voice: ‘Just a m-moment, Ziukin, don’t you love little Mika?’

‘Very much,’ I said, surprised at such a question.

‘And then . . . you are rather partial to Emilie, I believe?’

I was feeling very tired; we were both smeared with dust and clay; the air smelled of grass and the river; and all of this gave me the feeling that the ordinary conventions did not apply. That was the only reason why I answered this outrageously immodest question: ‘I am not indifferent to Mademoiselle Declique’s fate.’

‘So, the stake in this game is the lives of t-two people. People whom you . . . well, let us say, to whose fate you are “not indifferent”. And you are prepared to sacrifice those people for a piece of polished carbon?’

‘There are things that are more important than love,’ I said in a quiet voice and suddenly remembered that Fandorin had said the same thing to Xenia Georgievna quite recently.

I found this memory disturbing and felt it necessary to clarify my meaning: ‘For example, honour. Fidelity. The prestige of the monarchy. National holy relics.’

I felt rather foolish explaining such things, but what else was there for me to do?

Fandorin paused before he spoke: ‘You, Ziukin, have a choice. Do you see the police cordon around the chapel? Either you go across to it and tell them that Fandorin has absconded, t-taking the Orlov with him, or we try to save Emilie and the child together. Decide.’

So saying he took the black beard and shaggy wig out of his pocket – apparently he had kept them after all – and put on this hirsute disguise, transforming himself into a simple shaggy peasant of the kind who move into the large cities in search of work.

I do not know why I stayed with him. Upon my word of honour, I do not know. I did not say a word, but I did not move from the spot.

‘Well, are we off to hard labour in the same fetters?’ Fandorin asked with quite inappropriate merriment, holding out his hand.

His handshake was firm, mine was feeble.

‘Sit here for a while and don’t make yourself obvious. I’ll go and reconnoitre.’

He strode off in the direction of the convent and I knelt down beside the water. It was pure and transparent. I first drank my fill and then, when the ripples had dispersed, I contemplated the reflection of my face. Nothing in it seemed to have changed: a moustache, sideburns, a prominent forehead with a receding hairline. And yet it was not the face of Housemaster Ziukin, butler of the Green House and faithful servant of the throne, but that of a state criminal.

Erast Petrovich’s return roused me from my melancholy torpor but did nothing to improve my mood.

Apparently the police and soldiers had cordoned off not only the chapel but the entire convent. The search had already been going on for many hours in the underground labyrinth. The police constable with whom Fandorin spoke told him that all the police stations had been sent verbal portraits of two highly dangerous criminals who had committed some unknown crime that must be truly heinous. All routes out of Moscow were completely sealed off and it was only a matter of time before the two villains were caught. One of them was a lean youthful-looking man with dark hair and a slim moustache, special features, grey hair at the temples and a characteristic stammer. The other – and here Fandorin described my own modest person but in far greater detail. And so I learned that my nose was of the divided cartilage type, my wart was not merely on my neck but in its third left segment, and my eyes were of a marshy yellow hue with an almond-shaped outline.

‘How did you manage to get the constable to talk?’ I asked in amazement. ‘And did he not find your stammer suspicious?’

‘Getting a stranger to talk requires knowledge of psychology and physiognomical analysis,’ Erast Petrovich explained with a haughty air. ‘And as for the stammer, as you may have observed, when I assume a different identity, I change my voice and my way of speaking and all the other characteristics of speech. It is no longer me, or at least not entirely me. The stammer is the result of a concussion suffered very long ago by Fandorin, not by the grave little peasant who spoke so respectfully to the police constable.’

I gestured impatiently.

‘All your psychology is worth nothing in the present circumstances. We cannot save anyone. We need someone to save us. The police have our descriptions. We ought to give ourselves up. If we explain what happened, they will forgive us.’

Fandorin shrugged with outrageous flippancy. ‘Never mind those descriptions. We shall change our appearance. Dye your hair blond, dress you up as a civil servant, shave off your moustache and sideburns—’

‘Not for anything in the world!’ I exclaimed. ‘I have had them for more than twenty years!’

‘As you wish, but with your favoris de chien, as Lind puts it, you really are easy to identify. You are condemning yourself to remain inside, confined within four walls, while I shall move around the city quite freely.’

This threat did not frighten me in the least, and in any case I was already thinking about something else.

‘I can imagine how puzzled Their Highnesses are by my strange disappearance,’ I murmured dejectedly.

‘They are more likely indignant,’ Fandorin corrected me. ‘Viewed from the outside, the situation seems quite unambiguous. Naturally, everyone has decided that you and I conspired with Lind and have been working with him from the very beginning. Or else that we decided to take the opportunity to steal the Orlov. That is why the police are so very interested in us.’

I groaned. Why, of course, thatwas exactly howour behaviour appeared!

Fandorin also hung his head. Evidently he had finally realised the position in which we now found ourselves as a result of his inclination to irresponsible adventures. But no, it turned out to be something quite different that was saddening him.

‘Ah, Ziukin, what a magnificent operation, and it failed! Taking the place of the coachman was so simple, almost a stroke of genius. From what Emilie told me, I guessed that the driver was a deaf mute. That, plus the hat pulled so low over his eyes and the thick black beard, made the task easier. The police have the coachman now, but he will be no use to them. Not only is he mute, he is like a wild beast. That is why Lind was not afraid of exposing him to the danger of arrest. Everything should have gone so smoothly! We would have saved the boy and captured Lind.’ He gestured in annoyance and frustration. ‘Well, if we hadn’t taken him alive, we would have dropped him on the spot. It would be no loss to the human race. I ought to have gone down as well. Who could have imagined that the jeweller would not be afraid of a dagger? That was why everything went wrong. How devoted they are to Lind. What is his hold on them? No, it is simply quite incredible!’ Erast Petrovich jumped to his feet in agitation. ‘That damned Belgian was thinking about Lind, not himself. That is no mere bandit’s honour, it is absolutely genuine selfless love!’

‘How do you know that the jeweller was Belgian?’

‘What?’ he asked absent-mindedly. ‘Ah, from his accent. Belgian, from Antwerp. Absolutely no doubt about it. But that is not important. Something else, however, is. What d-do you make of what Emilie said? You remember, she shouted: “And Lind’s here. He’s—” What was to come next? I have the feeling that she was about to mention a name that we know or else some distinctive or unusual characteristic. If it was a name, then whose? If itwas a characteristic, thenwhat? “He is a hunchback”? “He is Chinese”? “He is a woman”?’ Fandorin narrowed his eyes. ‘As for being Chinese or a woman, I don’t know – anything is possible – but Lind is no hunchback. I know that for certain – I would have noticed . . . Never mind, we shall find out soon enough.’

These last words were spoken with such calm conviction that I felt a stirring of hope.

‘And so, Ziukin, let us d-discuss and assess the plusses and minuses of our situation.’ Erast Petrovich sat down on the sand beside me, picked up several small stones and drew a line across the sand. ‘The boy is still in Lind’s hands. That is bad.’ One stone, a black one, was set down on the left of the line. ‘Emilie has become a hostage too. That is also bad.’ A second black stone was added to the first.

‘And what is good?’ I burst out. ‘Add to this that all the police and secret police in the empire are hunting for you and me and not Doctor Lind. That His Highness is seriously ill as a result of the ordeals he has suffered, perhaps even at death’s door. That Lind, as you said yourself, does not leave witnesses alive!’

Fandorin nodded in agreement and put down three more stones on the same side.

‘And now let us look at things from the other side. It is good that you and I have the Orlov and are willing, as a last resort, to make an exchange. That is one. It is good that Lind has lost m-most of his gang. Almost all of them, in fact. Four on the day of the kidnapping, then all of Stump’s gang, and another five yesterday. Emilie shouted, “There are three of them.” So Lind has only two men left, and to start with he had almost twenty. That is two. Finally, yesterday I managed to tell Lind my name and specify the terms of a possible exchange. That is three.’

Looking at the five black stones and the three white ones, I did not feel my spirits suddenly rise.

‘But what is the point? We do not even know where to look for him now. And even if we did, our hands are tied. We can’t even take a step in Moscow without being arrested.’

‘You have advanced two theses, one of which is unsound and the other incorrect,’ Erast Petrovich objected with a professorial air. ‘Your last thesis, that our movements are restricted, is incorrect. As I have already had the honour of informing you, it is not at all difficult to change our appearance. Lind is the one whose movements are restricted. He has a burden on his hands – two prisoners, a sick child and a woman of extremely resolute character. The doctor will not dare to kill them because he has studied me enough to know that I will not allow myself to be deceived. That, by the way, is one more plus for us.’ He put down a fourth white stone. ‘And as for your first thesis, it is basically unsound, for a very simple reason: you and I are not going to look for Lind. The oats do not go to the horse. Lind will find us himself.’

Oh howexasperating I found that imperturbable manner, that didactic tone! But I tried to control myself.

‘Permit me to enquire why on earth Lind will seek us out. And, most importantly, how?’

‘Now instead of two theses you have asked two questions.’ Fandorin chuckled with insufferable self-assurance. ‘Let me answer the first one. We and the doctor are in a classic bargaining situation. There are goods and there is a buyer. The goods that I require and Lind has are as follows: firstly, little Mika; secondly, Emilie; thirdly, Doctor Lind’s own skin. Now for my goods, the ones that my trading partner covets. Firstly, a two-hundred-carat diamond, without which the doctor’s entire Moscow escapade will end as a shameful failure, and Lind is not used to that. And secondly, my life. I assure you that the doctor has as many counts to settle with me as I have with him. And so he and I will strike an excellent bargain.’

As he said this, Erast Petrovich looked as if hewere not talking about a battle with the most dangerous criminal in theworld but some amusing adventure or a game of whist. I have never liked people who show off, especially in serious matters, and Fandorin’s bravado seemed out of place to me.

‘Now for your second question,’ he continued, taking no notice of the frown on my face. ‘Howwill Lind seek us out? Well, that is very simple. This evening you and I will look through the advertisements and personal announcements in all the Moscow newspapers. We are certain to find something interesting. You don’t believe me? I am prepared to wager on it, although I do not usually gamble.’

‘A wager?’ I asked spitefully, finally losing patience with his bragging. ‘By all means. If you lose, we shall go and give ourselves up to the police today.’

He laughed light-heartedly. ‘And if I win, you will shave off your celebrated sideburns and moustache. Shall we shake on it?’

The bargain was sealed with a handshake.

‘We have to pay a visit to the Hermitage,’ said Fandorin, growing more serious. ‘To collect Masa. He will be very useful to us. And also to pick up a fewessentials. M-money, for example. I did not bring my wallet with me on this operation. I foresaw that the meeting with Lind was certain to involve jumping, brandishing fists, running and all kinds of similar activities, and any superfluous weight, even the slightest, is a hindrance to that. There you have one more proof of the old truth that money is never a superfluous burden. How much do you have with you?’

I put my hand into my pocket and discovered that in one of my numerous tumbles during the night I had dropped my purse. If I was not mistaken, it had contained eight roubles and some small change. I took out a handful of tarnished silver coins and gazed at them ruefully.

‘Is that all that you have?’ Erast Petrovich asked, taking one of the irregular round objects and twirling it in his fingers. ‘A Peter the Great altyn. We are not likely to be able to buy anything with that. Any antique shop would be glad to take your t-treasure, but it is too risky for us to appear in crowds with our present appearance. So, this is a strange situation: we have a diamond that is worth goodness knows how many millions but we can’t even buy a piece of bread. That makes a visit to the Hermitage all the more necessary.’

‘But how is that possible?’ I asked, raising my head above the grass growing on the riverbank. There was a line of soldiers and police standing right round the pond and the open field. ‘Everything here is cordoned off. And even if we broke out of the cordon, there is no way that we can walk right across the city in broad daylight!’

‘It’s easy to see that you know nothing of the geography of the old c-capital, Ziukin. What do you think that is?’ Fandorin jerked his chin towards the river.

‘What do you mean? The Moscow River.’

‘And what do you see every day from the windows of the Hermitage? That wet, g-greenish thing flowing slowly towards the Kremlin? We shall have to commit yet another crime, although not as serious as the theft of the Orlov.’

He walked over to a flimsy little boat moored to the bank, looked it over and nodded.

‘It will do. Of course there are no oars, but I think that p-plank over there will suit perfectly well. Get in, Ziukin. They won’t think of looking for us on the river, and we don’t have very far to sail. I feel sorry for the boat’s owner. The loss will probably be more ruinous for him than the loss of the Orlov would be for the Romanovs. Right then, let’s have your treasure trove.’

He delved into my pocket unceremoniously, clawed out the coins, put them beside the small stake to which the boat was moored and sprinkled a little sand over them.

‘Well, why are you just standing there? Get in. And be careful or this battleship will capsize.’

I got in, soaking my shoes in the water that had accumulated in the bottom of the boat. Fandorin pushed off with the plank, andwe drifted out very, very slowly. Heworked away desperately with his clumsy oar, delving alternately on the left and the right, but despite these Sisyphean labours our bark barely moved at all.

Ten minutes later, when we had still not even reached the middle of the river, I enquired: ‘But just how far do we have to sail to reach the Neskuchny Park?’

‘I th-think about . . . three v-versts,’ Fandorin replied with an effort, bright red from his exertions.

I could not resist a sarcastic comment: ‘At this speedwe should probably get there by tomorrow morning. The current is slow here.’

‘We don’t need the current,’ Erast Petrovich mumbled.

He started brandishing his plank even more vigorously, and the bow of our boat struck a log. A steam tug was passing by, towing a string of logs after it. Fandorin tied the mooring rope to a trimmed branch, dropped the plank in the bottom of the boat and stretched blissfully.

‘That’s it, Ziukin. We can take half an hour’s rest, and we’ll be at our destination.’

Grassy fields and market gardens drifted by slowly on the left; then came thewhitewalls of the Novodevichy Convent, the sight of which I was thoroughly sick by now. On the right there was a tall wooded bank. I saw a white church with a round dome, elegant arbours, a grotto.

‘You see before you Vorobyovsky Park, laid out in the English manner in imitation of a n-natural forest,’ Fandorin told me in the voice of a true guide. ‘Note the hanging bridge across that ravine. I saw a bridge exactly like it in the Himalayas, only it was woven out of shafts of bamboo. Of course, the drop below it was not twenty sazhens, it was a gulf of two versts. But then, for anyone who falls, the difference is immaterial . . . And what have we here?’

He leaned down and took a simple fishing rod out from under the bench. He examined it with interest, then turned his head this way and that and picked a green caterpillar off the side of the boat with an exclamation of joy.

‘Right, now, Ziukin, here’s to luck!’

He tossed the line into the water and almost immediately pulled out a silver carp the size of an open hand.

‘How about that, eh?’ Erast Petrovich exclaimed, thrusting his trembling prey under my nose. ‘Did you see that? It took l-less than a minute! A very good sign! That’s the way we’ll hook Lind!’

A perfect little boy! A boastful irresponsible boy. He put the wet fish in his pocket and it began moving as if his coat were alive.

A familiar bridge appeared ahead of us, the same one that could be seen from the windows of the Hermitage. Soon I spotted the green roof of the palace itself beyond the crowns of the trees.

Fandorin cast off from the log. When the rafts had drifted past us, we set a course for the right bank, and a quarter of an hour later we were at the railings of the Neskuchny Park.

This time I surmounted the obstacle without the slightest difficulty, thanks to the experience I had accumulated. We made ourway into the thickets, but Fandorinwaswary of approaching the Hermitage.

‘They certainly won’t be looking for us here,’ he declared, stretching out on the grass. ‘But it would still be best t-to wait until dark. Are you hungry?’

‘Yes, very. Do you have some provisions with you?’ I asked hopefully because, I must confess, my stomach had been aching from hunger for a long time.

‘Yes, this.’ He took his catch out of his pocket. ‘Have you never tried raw fish? In Japan everybody eats it.’

Naturally I declined such an incredible meal, and watched with some revulsion as Erast Petrovich gulped down the cold slippery carp, daintily extracting the fine bones and sucking them clean.

After completing this barbarous meal, he wiped his fingers on a handkerchief, took out a box of matches and then extracted a cigar from an inside pocket. He shook the matchbox and announced delightedly: ‘They have dried out. You don’t smoke, do you?’

He stretched contentedly and put one hand under his head.

‘What a picnic we are having, eh? Wonderful. Real heaven.’

‘Heaven?’ I half-sat up at that, I felt so indignant. ‘The world is falling apart before our very eyes, and you call it “heaven”?The very foundations of the monarchy are trembling; an innocent child has been tormented by fiends; the most worthy of women is being subjected, perhaps, at this very moment to . . .’ I did not finish the sentence because not all things can be said aloud. ‘Chaos, that is what it is. There is nothing in the world more terrible than chaos, because from chaos comes insanity, the destruction of standards and rules . . .’

I was overcome by a fit of coughing before I had fully expressed my thoughts, but Fandorin understood me and stopped smiling.

‘Do you know where your mistake lies, Afanasii Stepanovich?’ he said in a tired voice, closing his eyes. ‘You believe that theworld exists according to certain rules, that it possesses m-meaning and order. But I realised a long time ago that life is nothing but chaos. It possesses no order whatever, and no rules either.’

‘And yet you yourself give the impression of a man with firm rules,’ I said, unable to resist the jibe as I looked at his neat parting, which had remained immaculate despite all our alarming adventures.

‘Yes, I do have rules. But they are my own rules, invented by myself for myself and not for the wholeworld. Let theworld suit itself, and I shall suit myself. Insofar as that is possible. One’s own rules, Afanasii Stepanovich, are not the expression of a desire to arrange the whole of creation but an attempt to organise, to at least some degree, the space that lies in immediate proximity to oneself. And I do not manage even a trifle like that very well . . . All right, Ziukin. I think I’ll have a sleep.’

He turned over on to one side, cradled his head on one elbow and fell asleep immediately. What an incredible man!

I cannot say what I found more painful: my hunger, my anger or the awareness of my own helplessness. And yet I do know – it was the fear. Fear for the life of Mikhail Georgievich, for Emilie, for myself.

Yes, yes, for myself. And itwas the veryworst of all the varieties of fear known to me. I was desperately afraid, not of pain or even of death, but of disgrace. All my life the thing of which I had been most afraid was to find myself in a position of disgrace and thereby sacrifice the sense of my own dignity. Whatwould I have left if I were deprived of my dignity? Who would I be then? A lonely ageing man of no account with a lumpy forehead, a bulbous nose and ‘doggy sideburns’ who had wasted his life on something meaningless.

I had discovered the recipe for maintaining dignity a long time before, in my youth. The magical formula proved to be simple and brief: make every possible effort to avoid surprises. This meant that I had to foresee and make provision for everything in advance. To be forearmed, to performmy duties conscientiously and not to go chasing after chimerical illusions. That was how I had lived. And what was the outcome? Afanasii Ziukin was a thief and a deceiver, a scoundrel and a state criminal. At least, that was what the people whose opinion I valued thought of me.

The sun passed its highest point in the sky and began gradually declining towards the west. I grew weary of wandering around the small glade and sat down. An intangible breeze rustled the fresh foliage; a bumblebee buzzed with a bass note among the dandelions; lacy clouds slid slowly across the azure sky.

I won’t get to sleep anyway, I thought, leaning back against the trunk of an elm.

‘Wake up, Ziukin. It’s time to go.’

I opened my eyes. The clouds were moving as unhurriedly as before, but now they were pink instead of white, while the sky had darkened. The sun had already set, which meant that I had slept until about nine o’clock at least.

‘Stop batting your eyes like that,’ Fandorin said cheerfully. ‘We’re going to storm the Hermitage.’

Erast Petrovich took off his long-skirted driver’s coat, and was left wearing a sateen waistcoat and a light-blue shirt – he was almost invisible against the thickening twilight.

We walked quickly through the empty park to the palace. When I saw the brightly lit windows of the Hermitage, I was overcome by an unutterable melancholy. The house was like a white ocean-going yacht sailing calmly and confidently through the gloom, but I, who so recently had stood on its trim deck, had fallen overboard andwas floundering among the darkwaves, and I did not even dare to cry for help.

Fandorin interrupted my mournful thoughts: ‘Whose window is that – the third from the left on the ground floor? You’re not looking in the right place. The one that is open but with no light in it?’

‘That is Mr Freyby’s room.’

‘Will you be able to climb in? All right, forward!’

We ran across the lawn, pressed ourselves against thewall and crept up to the dark open window. Erast Petrovich formed his hands into a stirrup and hoisted me up so adroitly that I was easily able to climb over the window sill. Fandorin followed me.

‘Stay here for a while. I’ll be b-back soon,’ he said

‘But what if Mr Freyby comes in?’ I asked in panic. ‘How shall I explain my presence to him?’

Fandorin looked around and picked up a bottle with brown liquid splashing about in it off the table. I thought it must be the notoriouswhisky withwhich the English butler had once regaled me.

‘Here, take this. Hit him on the head, tie him up and put a gag in his mouth – that napkin over there. There’s nothing to be done about it, Ziukin, this is an emergency. You can apologise to him later. The last thing we need now is for the Englishman to shout and raise the alarm. And stop shaking like that; I’ll be back soon.’

And indeed he did return in no more than five minutes. He was holding a travelling bag in one hand.

‘I have all the most essential items here. They have searched my room but not touched anything. But Masa is not there. I’ll go to look for him.’

I was left alone again, but not for long – the door soon opened again.

This time, however, it was not Erast Petrovich but Mr Freyby. He reached out his hand, turned a small lever on the oil lamp, and the room was suddenly bright. I blinked in confusion.

Grasping the bottle firmly, I took an uncertain step forward. The poor butler, he was not to blame for anything.

‘Good evening,’ Freyby said politely in Russian, glancing curiously at the bottle, then he added something in English: ‘I didn’t realise that you liked my whisky that much.’ He took the dictionary out of his pocket and with impressive dexterity – he had clearly developed the knack – rustled the pages and said: ‘Ya . . . ne byl . . . soznavat . . . chto vi . . . lyubit . . . moi viski . . . tak . . . mnogo.’

This threw me into a state of total embarrassment. To hit someone over the head when he has started a conversation with you, that was absolutely unthinkable.

The Englishman looked at my confused expression, chuckled good-naturedly, slapped me on the shoulder and pointed at the bottle: ‘A present. Podarok.’

The butler noticed that I was holding the travelling bag in my other hand.

‘Going travelling? Coo-choo-choo?’ he asked, imitating the sound of a steam locomotive, and I realised that Freyby thought I was setting out on a journey and had decided to take the bottle of drink with me because I had taken such a liking to it.

‘Yes, yes,’ I muttered in Russian. ‘Voyage. Tenk yoo.’

Then I slipped out through the door into the corridor as quickly as I could. God only knew what Freyby thought about Russian butlers now. But this was no moment to be concerned about national prestige.

In the next room, Mr Carr’s, a bell jingled to summon a servant.

I barely had time to conceal myself behind a drape before the junior footman Lipps came trotting along the corridor. Oh, well done, Lipps. That meant therewas firmorder in the house. Iwas not on the spot, but everything was still working like clockwork.

‘What can I do for you, sir?’ Lipps asked as he opened the door.

Mr Carr said something in Russian in a lazy voice. I made out ‘ink’, spoken with a quite incredible accent, and the footman left at the same praiseworthy trot. I backed into the adjoining corridor that led to my room; I had decided to hide in there for the rest of my wait. I took a few short steps, clutching the travelling bag and the bottle tight against my chest, and then my back suddenly encountered something soft. I looked round. Oh Lord, Somov.

‘Hello, Afanasii Stepanovich,’ my assistant babbled. ‘Good evening. I have been moved into your room . . .’

I gulped and said nothing.

‘They said that you had run off . . . that you and Mr Fandorin would soon be found and arrested. They have already taken the gentleman’s Japanese servant. They say you are criminals,’ he concluded in a whisper.

‘I know,’ I said quickly. ‘But it is not true, Kornei Selifanovich. You have not had much time to get to know me, but I swear to you that what I am doing is for the sake of Mikhail Georgievich.’

Somov looked at me without saying anything, and from the expression on his face I could not tell what he was thinking. Would he shout or not? That was the only thing that concerned me at that moment. Just in case, I took a firm grip on the neck of the bottle with my fingers.

‘Yes, I really have had very little time to get to know you well, but you can tell a great butler straight away,’ Somov said in a quiet voice. ‘Permit me to take the liberty of saying that I admire you, Afanasii Stepanovich, and have always dreamed of being like you. And . . . and if you require my help, simply let me know. I will do anything.’

I felt a sudden tightness in my throat and was afraid that if I tried to speak, I might burst into tears.

‘Thank you,’ I said eventually. ‘Thank you for deciding not to give me away.’

‘How can I give you away when I have not even seen you?’ he asked with a shrug, then turned and walked away.

As a result of this entirely remarkable conversation, I lowered my guard a little and turned the corner without bothering to look first and see if there was anyone in the corridor. But there was Her Highness’s maid, Liza Petrishcheva, turning this way and that in front of the mirror.

‘Ah!’ squealed Liza, the foolish empty-headed girl who had been caught in the embraces of Fandorin’s valet.

‘Sh-sh-sh!’ I said to her. ‘Quiet, Petrishcheva. Do not shout.’

She nodded in fright, then suddenly swung round and darted away, howling: ‘Help! Murder! He’s he-e-e-ere!’

I dashed in the opposite direction, towards the exit, but heard the sound of excited men’s voices coming from there. Which way could I go?

Up to the first floor, there was nowhere else.

I dashed up the stairs in the twinkling of an eye and saw a white figure in the dimly lit passage. Xenia Georgievna!

I froze on the spot.

‘Where is he?’ Her Highness asked hastily. ‘Where is Erast Petrovich?’

I heard the tramping of many feet downstairs.

‘Ziukin’s here! Find him!’ I heard an authoritative bass voice say.

The grand princess grabbed hold of my arm. ‘To my room!’

We slammed the door and thirty seconds later several people ran by along the corridor.

‘Search the rooms!’ the same bass voice commanded.

Suddenly there were shouts from downstairs and someone howled: ‘Stop! Stop, you filthy swine!’

There was a shot and then another.

Xenia Georgievna squealed and swayed on her feet, and I was obliged to grab hold of her arms. Her face was as white as chalk, and her dilated pupils had turned her eyes completely black.

There was the sound of breaking glass on the ground floor.

Her Highness pushed me away sharply and dashed to the window sill. I followed her. Down below we saw a dark figure that had obviously just jumped from a window.

It was Fandorin – I recognised the waistcoat.

The next second another two figures in civilian clothes leapt out of the same window and grabbed Erast Petrovich by the arms. Xenia Georgievna gave a piercing screech.

However, Fandorin demonstrated a quite remarkable flexibility. Without freeing his hands, he twisted round like a spring and struck one of his opponents in the groin with his knee, and then dealt with the other in exactly the same manner. Both police agents doubled over, and Erast Petrovich flitted across the lawn like a shadow and disappeared into the bushes.

‘Thank God!’ Her Highness whispered. ‘He is safe!’

People began running around outside the house, some in uniforms, some in civilian clothes. Some went dashing down the drive towards the gates, others rushed off in pursuit of the fugitive. But there were not very many pursuers, perhaps about ten. How could they catch the fleet-footed Mr Fandorin in the wide spaces of the dark park?

I had no need to feel concerned for Erast Petrovich, but what was going to happen to me?

There was a loud knock at the door.

‘Your Imperial Highness! There is a criminal in the house! Are you all right?’

Xenia Georgievna gestured for me to hide in the wardrobe. She opened the door of the room and said in a discontented voice: ‘I have a terrible migraine, and you are shouting and clattering. Catch your criminal but do not bother me again!’

‘Your Highness, at least lock yourself in.’

‘Very well.’

I heard the sound of a key turning in a lock and came out into the centre of the room.

‘I know,’ Xenia Georgievna said in a feverish whisper, clasping my shoulders in a tremulous embrace. ‘It is all lies. He could not have committed a robbery. And you, Afanasii Stepanovich, are not capable of such a thing either. I have guessed everything. You want to rescue Mika. I do not ask you to tell me exactly what you plan to do. Just tell me, am I right?’

And she really did not ask me any more questions. She went down on her knees in front of an icon and started bowing low to the floor. I had never seen Her Highness display such piety before, not even when she was a child. She seemed to be whispering something as well, probably a prayer, but I could not make out the words.

Xenia Georgievna prayed for an unbearably long time. I believe it must have been at least half an hour. And I stood there, waiting. All I did was put the bottle of whisky into the travelling bag. Quite clearly, I could not leave it in the grand princess’s room, could I?

Her Highness did not rise from her knees until everything was quiet in the house and the pursuers had returned, talking loudly among themselves. She walked over to the secretaire, touched something inside it that made a jingling sound and then called me over to her. ‘Take this, Afanasii. You will need money. I do not have any, you know that. But here is a pair of opal earrings and a diamond brooch. They are my own, not the family’s. These things can be sold. They are probably worth a lot.’

I tried to protest, but she would not listen to me. To avoid being drawn into a long argument, for which this was quite the wrong time, I took the jewels, promising myself firmly that I would return them to Her Highness safe and sound.

Then Xenia Georgievna took a long silk sash from a Chinese dressing gown out of the wardrobe.

‘Tie this to the window catch and climb down. It will not reach all the way to the ground – you will have to jump – but you are brave; you will not be afraid. May the Lord preserve you.’

She made the sign of the cross over me and then suddenly kissed me on the cheek. I was quite overcome. And it must have been my state of disorientation that made me ask: ‘Is there anything you would like me to tell Mr Fandorin?’

‘That I love him,’ Her Highness replied briefly and pushed me towards the window.

I reached the ground without injuring myself in any way, and also negotiated the park without any adventures. I halted at the railings beyond which lay Bolshaya Kaluga Street, almost empty at this hour of the evening. After waiting until there were no passers-by anywhere in sight, I clambered over to the other side very nimbly. I had definitely made great progress in the art of climbing fences.

However, what I ought to do now was not clear. I still had no money so I could not even hire a cab. Andwherewould I actually go?

I halted indecisively.

There was a newspaper boy wandering along the street. Still a little child, about nine years old. He was shouting with all his might, although there didn’t seem to be anyone there to buy his goods.

‘The latest Half-Kopeck News. Get your Half-Kopeck News. The newspaper for private ads! An admirer for some, a bride for others! An apartment for some, a good job for others!’

I started, recalling my wager with Fandorin. I rummaged in my pockets, hoping to find a copper half-kopeck or one-kopeck piece. There was something round and flat behind the lining. An old silver coin, a Peter the Great altyn.

Well, never mind. He probably would not notice in the dark.

I called the newspaper seller, tugged a folded paper out of his bag and tossed the silver coin into his mug – it jangled every bit as well as copper. The boy plodded on his way as if nothing at all had happened, bawling out his crude doggerel.

I walked over to a street lamp and unfolded the grey paper.

And I saw it – right there in the centre of the front page, with letters a full vershok in height:

My eagle! My diamond-precious love! I forgive you.

I love you. I am waiting for your message.

Your Linda

Write to the Central Post Office,

to the bearer of treasury note No. 137078859.

That was it! No doubt at all about it! And how cunningly it had been composed. No one who did not know about the diamond and the exchange would have the slightest idea!

But would Fandorin see this paper? How could I inform him? Where should I seek him now? What terrible luck!

‘Well then?’ a familiar voice asked out of the darkness. ‘That’s genuine love for you. This passionate declaration has been published in all the evening papers.’

I swung round, astonished at such a fortunate encounter.

‘Why do you look so surprised, Ziukin? After all, it was clear that if you managed to escape from the house, you would climb over the railings. I just d-did not know exactly where. I had to engage four newspaper boys to walk up and down the railings and shout about private advertisements at the tops of their voices. That’s it, Ziukin. You have lost the wager. So much for your remarkable drooping moustache and sideburns.’

17 May

Staring out at me from the mirror was a puffy thick-lipped face with the beginnings of a double chin and unnaturally white cheeks. Deprived of its sumptuous drooping moustache and combed sideburns, my face seemed to have emerged out of some cloud or bank of fog to appear before me naked, exposed and defenceless. I was quite shaken by the sight of it – it was like seeing myself for the first time. I had read in some novel that as a man passes through life he gradually creates his own self-portrait, applying a pattern of wrinkles, folds, hollows and protuberances to the smooth canvas of the persona that he inherited at birth. Everyone knows that wrinkles can be intelligent or stupid, genial or spiteful, cheerful or sad. And the effect of this drawing, traced by the hand of life itself, is to make some people more beautiful with the passing years, and some more ugly.

When the initial shock had passed and I looked at the self-portrait a little more closely, I realised that I could not say with any certainty whether I was pleased with the work. I supposed I was pleased with the pleated line of the lips – it testified to experience of life and a quite definite firmness of character. However, the broad lower jaw hinted at moroseness, and the flabby cheeks provoked thoughts of a predisposition to failure. The most astounding thing of all was that the removal of the covering of hair had altered my appearance far more than the ginger beard I had recently worn. I had suddenly ceased to be a grand-ducal butler and become a lump of clay, which could now be moulded into a man of any background or rank.

However, Fandorin, having studied my new face with the air of a connoisseur of painting, seemed to be of a different opinion. Setting aside the razor, he muttered as if to himself: ‘You are hard to disguise. The gravity is still there, the prim fold on the forehead has not disappeared either, or the alignment of the head . . . Hmm, Ziukin, you are not at all like me, not in the least, except that we are about the same height . . . But never mind. Lind knows that I am a master of self-transformation. Such obvious dissimilarity might actually make his men quite certain that you are me. Who shall be we dress you up as? I think we should make you a civil servant, sixth or seventh class. You don’t look at all right for any rank lower than that. You stay here; I’ll g-go to the military and civil uniform shop on Sretenka Street. I’ll look out something for myself at the same time. Here in Russia the easiest way to hide a man is behind a uniform.’

The previous evening Erast Petrovich had found an announcement of an apartment for rent in the same Half-Kopeck News where Doctor Lind had placed his notice:

For rent, for the coronation, a seven-room apartment

with furniture, tableware and telephone.

Close to the Clear Ponds. 5000 roubles.

Use of servants possible for additional charge.

Arkhangelsky Lane, the house of state counsellor’s

widow Sukhorukova. Enquire at porter’s lodge.

The number of rooms appeared excessive to me, and the price – bearing in mind the coronation celebrations were almost over – was quite staggering, but Fandorin would not listen to me. ‘On the other hand, it is close to the post office,’ he said. And before the evening was out we were installed in a fine gentleman’s apartment located on the ground floor of a new stone house. The porter was so pleased to receive payment in advance that he did not even ask to see our passports.

After taking tea in a sumptuously but rather tastelessly furnished dining room, we discussed our plan of further action. Actually, our discussion was more like a monologue by Fandorin, and for the most part I listened. I suspected that for Erast Petrovich a so-called discussion was simply a matter of him thinking aloud, and any requests for my opinion or advice ought be regarded as no more than figures of speech.

It is true, though, that I began the conversation. Lind’s initiative and the acquisition of a roof over our heads had had a most heartening effect on me, and my former despondency had vanished without trace.

‘The business does not seem so very complicated to me,’ I declared. ‘We will send a letter with a statement of the terms of exchange, and occupy an observation post close to the window where they hand out the poste restante correspondence. When the bearer of the treasury note turns up, we shall follow him inconspicuously, and he will lead us to Lind’s new hideout. You said yourself that the doctor has only two helpers left, so we shall manage things ourselves, without the police.’

The plan seemed very extremely practical to me, but Fandorin looked at me as if I were blathering some kind of wild nonsense.

‘You underestimate Lind. The trick with the bearer of the note has a completely different meaning. The doctor of course expects me to trail his messenger. Lind must already know that I am playing my own game and the authorities are no longer helping me but on the contrary trying to hunt me down. Anything that is known to the entire municipal police is no longer a secret. So Lind thinks that I am acting alone. If I wait at the post office trying to spot the doctor’s courier, someone else will spot me. The hunter caught in his own trap.’

‘What are we to do?’ I asked, perplexed.

‘Fall into the trap. There is no other way. I have a trump card that Lind does not even suspect exists. And that trump card is you.’

I squared my shoulders because, I must admit, it was pleasing to hear something like that from the smug Fandorin.

‘Lind does not know that I have a helper. I shall disguise you very cunningly, not so that you will look like Fandorin, but so that you will look like a disguised Fandorin. You and I are almost the same height, and that is the most important thing. You are substantially more corpulent, but that can be concealed by means of loose-fitting garments. Anyone who spends too long hanging around that little window will arouse Lind’s suspicions of it being me in disguise.’

‘But at the same time it will not be hard to recognise Lind’s man, for surely he will “hang around”, as you put it, somewhere close by.’

‘Not necessarily, by any means. Lind’s men might work in rotation. We know that the doctor has at least two helpers left. They are almost as interesting to me as Lind himself. Who are they? What do they look like? What do we know about them?’

I shrugged.

‘Nothing.’

‘Unfortunately, that is actually the case. When I jumped down into the underground vault at the tomb, I had no time to see anything. As you no doubt recall, that bulky gentleman whose carotid artery I was obliged to crush threw himself on me straightaway. While I was busy with him, Lind was able to withdraw and maintain his complete anonymity. What was it that Emilie tried to tell us about him? “He’s . . .” He’s what?’

Fandorin frowned discontentedly.

‘There is no point in trying to guess. There is only one thing that we can say about his helpers. One of them is Russian, or at least has lived in Russia for many years and speaks the language absolutely fluently.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘The text of the notice, Ziukin. Do you think that a foreigner would have written about a “diamond-precious love”?’

He stood up and started walking round the room. He took a set of jade beads out of his pocket and started clicking the small green spheres. I did not know where these beads had come from – probably out of the travelling bag. That was undoubtedly the source of the white shirt with the fold-down collar and the light-cream jacket. And the bottle of whisky, Mr Freyby’s present, had migrated from the travelling bag to the sideboard.

‘Tomorrow, or rather, t-today, Lind and I shall fight our decisive battle. He and I both understand this. A tie is not possible. Such is the peculiar nature of our barter: both parties are determined to take everything, and without trading anything for it. What would a tie signify in our case? You and I save the hostages but lose the Orlov.’ Fandorin nodded towards the travelling bag, where he had concealed the stone the previous day. ‘Lind remains alive, and so do I. And that does not suit either him or me. No, Ziukin, there will be no tie.’

‘But what if Mademoiselle and Mikhail Georgievich are already dead?’ I asked, giving voice to my greatest fear.

‘No, they are alive,’ Fandorin declared confidently. ‘Lind knows quite well that I am no fool. I will not hand over the stone until I am convinced that the hostages are alive.’ He clicked his beads once again and put them away in his pocket. ‘So this is what we shall do. You, in the role of the false Fandorin, keep an eye on the window. Lind’s men keep an eye on you. The real Fandorin keeps an eye on them. All very simple really, is it not?’

His self-assurance inspired me with hope, but infuriated me at the same time. That was the very moment at which the agonising doubt that had been tormenting me since the previous evening was finally resolved. I would not tell him what Xenia Georgievna had said. Mr Fandorin already had too high an opinion of himself without that.

He sat down at the table and, after a moment’s thought, jotted down a few lines in French. I looked over his shoulder.

For me, unlike you, people are more important than precious stones. You will get your diamond. At four a.m. bring the boy and the woman to the open ground where the Petersburg Chaussйe turns towards the Petrovsky Palace. We shall conduct the exchange there. I shall be alone. It does not matter to me how many people you have with you.

Fandorin

‘Why precisely there, and why at such a strange time?’ I asked.

‘Lind will like it: the dead hour before dawn, a deserted spot. In essence it makes no difference whatsoever, but things will be decided all the sooner . . . Go to bed, Ziukin. Tomorrow will be an interesting day for us. And I shall go and post the letter in the box at the Central Post Office. Correspondence that arrives in the morning is handed out beginning from three in the afternoon. That is when you will take up your position. But first we shall transform you beyond all recognition.’

I cringed at those words. And, as it turned out, I was right to do so.

The Moscow Central Post Office seemed a poor place to me, no comparison at all with the post office in St Petersburg. It was dark and cramped with no facilities whatever for the customers. In my view a city of a million people ought to acquire a somewhat more presentable central post office. For my purposes, however, the squalidness of this state institution actually proved most opportune. The congestion and poor lighting made my aimless wandering around the hall less obvious. Fandorin had dressed me up as a collegiate counsellor of the Ministry of Agriculture and State Lands, and so I looked very impressive. Why would such a staid gentleman with clean-shaven chops spend so many hours at a stretch sauntering around between the battered counters? Several times I halted as if by chance in front of a chipped mirror in order to observe the people coming in less conspicuously. And, why not admit it? I also wanted to get a better look at myself.

I fancied that the appearance of an individual of the sixth rank suited me very well indeed. It was as if I had been born with those velvet buttonholes decorated with gold braid and the Order of St Vladimir hanging round my neck. (The order had come out of that same travelling bag.) Nobody stared at me in amazement or disbelief – I was a perfectly regular official. Except perhaps for the attendant in the poste restante window, who from time to time cast attentive glances in my direction. And quite naturally too – I had been marching past him since three o’clock in the afternoon. And business hours at the post office during the coronation celebrations had been extended right up to nine, owing to the large volume of mailings, so I was stepping out for quite a long time.

But never mind the attendant at the window. The worst thing of all was that time was going to waste. None of the people who approached the little window presented treasury bills. No one loitered nearby for a suspiciously long time. I did not even notice something that Fandorin had warned me about: someone who left the hall and returned repeatedly.

As the end of the day approached, despair began to take a grip of me. Could Lind really have worked out our plan? Had everything gone wrong?

But at five minutes to nine, when the post office was already preparing to close, a portly sailor with a grey moustache wearing a dark-blue pea jacket and a cap with no cockade came striding in briskly through the doors. He was clearly a retired boatswain or pilot. Without bothering to look round, he walked straight across to the little window with the poste restante sign and rumbled in a voice rendered hoarse by drink: ‘There’s supposed to be a little letter here for me. For the bearer of a banknote with the number . . .’ He rummaged in his pocket for a while and took out a note, held it out as far as possible from his long-sighted eyes and read: ‘One three seven zero seven eight eight five nine. Got anything?’

I moved closer without making a sound, vainly struggling to control the trembling in my knees.

The post office attendant gaped at the sailor. ‘There hasn’t been any such letter,’ he said eventually after a lengthy pause. ‘Nothing of the kind has come in today.’

It hasn’t come in? I groaned inwardly. There where on earth had it got to? It looked as if I had just spent the best part of six hours hanging about here in vain!

The boatswain started grumbling too: ‘Oh that’s good, getting an old man running round the place, and all for nothing. Aaagh!’

He wiggled his thick eyebrows angrily, rubbed his sleeve over his luxurious moustache and walked towards the door.

Only one thing was clear – I had to follow him. There was no reason to stay in the post office any longer, and the working day was already over.

I slipped out into the street and followed the old man, maintaining a substantial distance. However, the sailor never looked round even once. He kept his hands in his pockets and walked as if he were in no hurry, waddling along but at the same time moving remarkably fast. I was barely able to keep up with him.

Absorbed in the chase, I did not remember at first that the plan had allocated a quite different role to me – that of decoy. I had to check to see if there was anyone following me. Obeying the instructions I had been given, I took out of my waistcoat pocket a fob watch in which Fandorin had installed a little round mirror, and pretended to be studying the dial.

There he was! Walking twenty paces behind me, a suspicious-looking character: tall, stooped, wearing a wide-peaked cap, with his coat collar raised. He clearly had his eyes fixed on me. Just to make sure, I turned the watch slightly to examine the far side of the street and discovered another man who looked equally suspicious – the same kind of burly thug, demonstrating the same kind of unambiguous interest in my person. Had they taken the bait?

Two of them at once! And perhaps Doctor Lind himself was not far away?

Could Fandorin see all this? I had played the role of the bait faithfully; now it was up to him.

The boatswain turned into a side street. I followed him. The other two followed me. There was no doubt at all left: those two charmers were the doctor’s helpers!

Suddenly the sailor turned into a narrow entrance. I slowed down, struck by an understandable concern. If those two followed me, and Fandorin had fallen behind or gone off somewhere else altogether, it was very probable that I would not get out of this dark crevice alive. And now the old man did not seem as simple as he had at the beginning. Ought I really to walk straight into a trap?

Unable to stop myself, I looked round quite openly. Apart from the two bandits the side street was completely deserted. One pretended to read the sign of a grocery shop; the other turned away with a bored air. And there was no sign of Erast Petrovich!

There was nothing else for it – I walked through the narrow entranceway then into a courtyard, then another archway, and another, and another. It was already dusk out in the street, and in here it was dark in any case, but I could still have made out the boatswain’s silhouette. The only problem was that the old man had disappeared, simply vanished into thin air! He could not possibly have got through this sequence of passages so quickly, not unless he had broken into a run, but in that case I would have heard the echoes of his steps. Or had he turned off at the first courtyard?

I froze.

Then suddenly, from out of the darkness on one side, I heard Fandorin’s voice: ‘Don’t just hang about like that, Ziukin. Walk without hurrying and stay in the light, so that they can see you.’

No longer understanding anything that was going on, I obediently walked on. Where had Fandorin come from? And where had the boatswain got to? Had Erast Petrovich really had enough time to stun him and hide him away?

I heard steps clattering behind me, echoing under the low vaulted ceiling. They started clattering faster and moving closer. Apparently my pursuers had decided to overtake me. Then I heard a dry click that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I had heard more than my share of clicks like that, when I was loading revolvers and cocking firing hammers for Pavel Georgievich – His Highness loves to fire his guns at the shooting range.

I turned round, expecting a roar and a flash, but there was no shot after all.

I saw two silhouettes, and then a third, against the background of a bright rectangle. The third one detached itself from the wall and threw out one foot with indescribable speed, and one of my pursuers doubled over. The other pursuer swung round smartly, and I quite clearly glimpsed the barrel of a pistol, but the fast-moving shadow swung one hand through the air – upwards, at an oblique angle – and a tongue of flame shot up towards the stone vault, while the man who had fired the gun went flying back against the wall, slid down it to the ground and sat there without moving.

‘Ziukin, come here!’

I ran across muttering: ‘Purge us of all defilement and save our souls.’ I could not say myself what had come over me – it must have been the shock.

Erast Petrovich leaned down over the seated man and struck a match, and it was not Erast Petrovich at all, but my acquaintance the boatswain with the grey moustache. I started blinking very rapidly.

‘Curses,’ said the boatswain. ‘I miscalculated the blow. And all because it’s so damn dark in here. The nasal septum has fractured and the bone has entered the brain. Killed outright. Well then, what about the other one?’

He moved across to the first bandit, who was struggling to get up off the ground.

‘Excellent, this one’s fresh as a cucumber. Give me some light on him, Afanasii Stepanovich.’

I struck a match. The feeble flame lit up a pair of vacant eyes and lips gasping for air.

The boatswain, who was, after all, none other than Fandorin himself, squatted down on his haunches and slapped the stunned man resoundingly across the cheeks.

‘Where is Lind?’

No reply. Nothing but heavy breathing.

‘Oщ est Lind? Wo ist Lind? Where is Lind?’ Erast Petrovich repeated, pausing between the different languages.

The eyes of the man lying on the ground were no longer vacant but animate with a fierce spite. His lips came together, twitched, stretched out, and a gob of spittle went flying into Fandorin’s face.

‘Du, Scheissdreck! Kьss mich auf—’¹

The hoarse screeching broke off as Fandorin jabbed the bandit in the throat with the edge of his open hand. The spiteful glow in the man’s eyes faded and the back of his head struck the ground with a dull thud.

‘You killed him!’ I exclaimed in horror. ‘Why?’

‘He wouldn’t have told us anything anyway, and we have v-very little time left.’

Erast Petrovich wiped the spittle off his cheek and pulled off the dead man’s jacket. He dropped something small and white onto his chest – I could not really see it properly.

‘Quick, Ziukin! Get that uniform off. Leave it here. Put this on.’

He pulled off his grey moustache and eyebrows and threw the boatswain’s pea jacket on the ground, leaving himself in a short frock coat with narrow shoulder straps. He attached a cockade to his cap, and I suddenly realised that it was a police cap, not a navy one.

‘You don’t have a sabre,’ I remarked. ‘A police officer has to have a sabre.’

‘I’ll get a sabre, don’t worry. In a little while,’ said Fandorin, grabbing me by the arm and pulling me after him. ‘Quick, Ziukin, quick!’

It was a shame simply to fling a good-quality uniform on the ground, and so I hung it on the handle of a gate – it would come in useful for someone.

Erast Petrovich looked round as he ran.

‘The order!’

I took the Order of St Vladimir off my neck and put it in my pocket.

‘Where are we going in such a hurry?’ I shouted, dashing after him.

There was no answer.

We ran out of the side street back on to Myasnitskaya Street, but turned into a gateway just before the post office. It led into a narrow stone courtyard with only a few service doors in the walls. Fandorin dragged me into a corner behind some large rubbish containers stuffed to the brim with brown wrapping paper and scraps of string. Then he took out his watch.

‘Ten minutes past nine. We dealt with that quickly. He probably hasn’t come out yet?’

‘Who is he?’ I asked, breathing hard.

‘Lind?’ Fandorin stuck his hand straight into a rubbish container and extracted a long narrow bundle. Inside it there was a sword belt and a police sabre.

‘Our acquaintance from the poste restante. He’s the one, didn’t you realise?’

‘He is Doctor Lind?’ I said, astounded.

‘No, he is Lind’s man. It all turned out to be very simple, much simpler than I expected. And it explains the mystery of the letters. Now we know how they reached the Hermitage without a stamp. A post office counter attendant working for Lind – let us call this individual the Postman for brevity’s sake – simply put them into the sack with the post for the Kaluzhskaya district.

‘And the letter we sent today also fell straight into his hands. He noticed you cruising up and down near the window and informed Lind, who sent his men. They waited patiently for you outside in the street. Or rather they waited for Fandorin, since they thought it was me.’

‘But . . . But how did you manage to guess all this?’

He smiled smugly. ‘I was sitting in the tea room opposite the post office, waiting for you to come out and follow the man who collected the letter. Time went by, and you still didn’t come out. It seemed strange to me for Lind to act so slowly. After all, he is no less interested in this encounter than I am. Of all the people going into the post office, no one stayed inside for long, and I didn’t spot anyone suspicious. Things began to get interesting with the arrival of the two gentlemen known to you, who appeared at about a quarter to four. They actually arrived together and then separated. One took a seat in my tea room, two tables away from me, after asking in German for a place at the window. He kept his eyes fixed on the doors of the post office and never looked around him at all. The second went into the building for a moment and then came back out to join the first. That meant you had been discovered, but for some reason Lind’s people were not showing any interest in the contents of the letter. I thought about that for a long time and eventually formed a hypothesis. Just before the post office closed I set out to test it. You saw the way the Postman gaped at me when I claimed to be the bearer of the treasury bill? It was a total surprise to him, since there could not be any bearer – he knew that quite definitely. The Postman could not control his facial expression and gave himself away. We must assume that he is the doctor’s Russian assistant who drew up the playful announcement for the newspaper. The Postman is the one who can lead us back to Lind.’

‘But what if he was alarmed by the appearance of the mysterious boatswain and has already gone running to warn the doctor?’

‘Tell me, Ziukin, have you ever had occasion to receive letters via the poste restante? No? It shows. The post office keeps the letter or package for three days free of charge and then starts charging a daily penalty.’

I thought hard but failed to discover any connection between this circumstance and the apprehension that I had expressed.

‘Well, what of it?’

‘This,’ Erast Petrovich said with a patient sigh. ‘Wherever payments are taken there is financial accounting. Our friend cannot leave until he has cashed up and handed over the takings – it would look far too suspicious. That door over there is the service entrance. In about five minutes, or ten at the most, the Postman will come out of it and set off very quickly straight to Lind, and we shall follow along. I hope very much that the doctor has no more helpers left. I am really sick of them.’

‘Why did you kill that German?’ I asked, remembering the incident. ‘Just because he spat at you? He was stunned, helpless!’

Fandorin was surprised. ‘I see, Ziukin, that you think I am a worse monster than Lind. Why should I want to kill him? Not to mention the fact that he is a valuable witness. I only put him to sleep, and not for long, about four hours. I expect that will be long enough for the police to find our two friends. An interesting discovery, is it not – a corpse and beside it a man with a revolver in his pocket. And I also left my visiting card with a note: “This is one of Lind’s men.”’

I recalled the white thing that Fandorin had dropped onto the bandit’s chest.

‘Perhaps Karnovich and Lasovsky will be able to shake something out of him. Although it is not very likely. There are no traitors among Lind’s helpers. But at least the police will start to question whether you and I are thieves, and that in itself is no bad thing.’

This final consideration sounded most reasonable, and I was about to tell Fandorin so, but he placed his hand over my mouth in an outrageously cavalier fashion.

‘Quiet!’

A narrow door swung open violently and the familiar counter attendant came out almost at a run, now wearing a peaked uniform cap and carrying a file under his arm. Taking short strides, he strutted past the rubbish containers and headed out through the gateway.

‘He’s in a hurry,’ Erast Petrovich whispered. ‘That’s very good. It means he was not able to telephone or has nowhere to phone to. I wonder how he informed Lind about your arrival? By note? That would mean that the doctor’s lair is somewhere quite close. All right. Time to go.’

We walked out quickly into the street. I started looking around, trying to spot a free cab – after all, if the Postman was in a hurry, he was sure to take a carriage. But no, the hurrying figure in the black post office uniform crossed the boulevard and disappeared into a narrow little street. So Erast Petrovich had guessed right, and Lind was somewhere not far away.

Without stopping, Fandorin told me: ‘Drop back about ten sazhens behind me and keep your distance. But d-do not run!’

It was easy for him to say ‘Do not run!’ Erast Petrovich himself has a miraculous way of striding along rapidly but without any visible signs of haste, and so I was obliged to move in the manner of a wounded hare: I walked for about twenty steps, and then ran for a brief stretch, walked and ran, walked and ran. Otherwise I would have fallen behind. It was already completely dark, which was most opportune since otherwise I fear that my strange manoeuvres would have attracted the attention of the occasional passer-by. The Postman wound his way through the side streets for a little while and suddenly stopped in front of a small detached wooden house with a door that opened straight onto the pavement. There was light at one of the curtained windows – someone was at home – but the Postman did not ring the doorbell; he opened the door with a key and slipped inside.

‘What are we going to do?’ I asked, catching up with Fandorin. He took hold of my elbow and led me away from the little house.

‘I don’t know. Let’s t-try to work that out.’ By the light of a street lamp, I saw the smooth forehead below the lacquered peak of the police cap gather into wrinkles. ‘There are several possibilities. The first: Doctor Lind and the hostages are here. Then we need to keep watch on the windows and wait. If they try to leave, then we strike. The second possibility: only Lind is here and Emilie and the boy are somewhere else. We still have to wait until the doctor comes out and follow him until he leads us to the hostages. The third possibility: neither Lind nor the p-prisoners are here, only the postman and his family. After all, there was someone in the house, was there not? In that case, someone has to come to the Postman from Lind. There is hardly likely to be a telephone connection in this little house. So once again we need to wait. We can see who comes, and then act according to the circumstances. So, there are three alternatives, and in every case we have to wait. Let’s m-make ourselves comfortable – the wait might drag on for a while.’ Erast Petrovich looked around. ‘I tell you what, Ziukin, get a cabby from the boulevard. Don’t tell him where he’s going. Just say that you’re hiring him for a long time, and he’ll be generously paid. And meanwhile I’ll look for a comfortable spot.’

When I drove back to the corner in a cab a quarter of an hour later, Fandorin emerged from the dense shadows to meet us. Straightening his sword belt, he said in a stern commanding voice: ‘Badge number 345?You’ll be with us all night long. Secret business. You’ll be paid twenty-five roubles for your work. Drive into that entranceway and wait. And no sleeping now, Vologda. Understand?’

‘I understand, what’s so hard to understand?’ the cabby replied briskly. He was a young peasant with a clever snub-nosed face. I didn’t understand how Fandorin guessed from his appearance that he was from Vologda, but the cabby certainly did stretch his vowels to the limit.

‘Let’s go, Afanasii Petrovich. I’ve found a most comfortable spot.’

Opposite the little wooden house was a more impressive detached property surrounded by a trellis fence. Erast Petrovich bounded over the fence in an instant and beckoned for me to follow his example. Compared with the railings at the Neskuchny Park it was simple.

‘Well, not bad, is it?’ Fandorin asked proudly, pointing to the other side of the street.

The view of the Postman’s house from there really was ideal, but our observation point could only have been called ‘most comfortable’ by a masochistic (I believe I have remembered the word correctly) habituй of the chamber at the Elysium club. Right behind the fence there were thick prickly bushes that immediately started catching at my clothes and scratching my forehead. I groaned as I tried to free my elbow. Would I really have to sit here all night?

‘Never mind,’ Fandorin whispered cheerfully. ‘The Chinese say: “The noble man does not strive for comfort.” Let’s watch the windows.’

We started watching the windows.

To tell the truth, I failed to spot anything remarkable – just a vague shadow that flitted across the curtains a couple of times. In all the other houses the windows had gone dark a long time ago, while the inhabitants of our house seemed to have no intention of going to sleep at all – but that was the only thing that might have seemed suspicious.

‘And what if there is a fourth?’ I asked after about two hours.

‘A fourth what?’

‘Alternative.’

‘Which is what?’

‘What if you were mistaken and the post office employee has nothing to do with Lind?’

‘Out of the question,’ Fandorin hissed rather too angrily. ‘He definitely does. And he is bound to lead us to the d-doctor himself.’

Oh, to taste the honey that your lips drink, I thought, recalling the old folk saying, but I said nothing.

Another half-hour went by. I started thinking that probably for the first time in my life I had lost track of the days. Was today Friday or Saturday, the seventeenth or the eighteenth? It was not really all that important, but for some reason the question gave me no peace. Finally I could stand it no longer, and I asked in a whisper: ‘Is today the seventeenth?’

Fandorin took out his Breguet, and the phosphorescent hands flashed in the darkness.

‘It has been the eighteenth for five minutes.’

¹You, shit! Kiss me on—

18 May

The previous day had been warm, and so had the evening, but after several hours of sitting still I was chilled right through. My teeth had started to chatter, my legs had gone numb, and any hope that our nocturnal vigil would produce some useful result had almost completely evaporated. But Fandorin remained completely unruffled – indeed, he had not stirred a muscle the whole time, which made me suspect that he was sleeping with his eyes open. And what irritated me most of all was the calm, I would even say complacent, expression on his face, as if he were sitting there listening to some kind of enchanting music or the song of birds of paradise.

Suddenly, just when I was seriously considering the idea of rebellion, Erast Petrovich, without any visible change in his demeanour, whispered: ‘Attention.’

I started and looked carefully but failed to see any change. The windows in the house opposite us were still lit up. There was not a single sign of movement, not a single sound.

I glanced at my companion again and saw that he had not yet emerged from his sleep, swoon, reverie or whatever – his general strange state of trance.

‘They are about to come out,’ he said quietly.

‘Why do you think that?’

‘I have fused into a single reality with the house and allowed the house to enter into myself so that I can feel it b-breathing,’ Erast Petrovich said with a completely serious air. ‘It is an oriental t-technique. It would take too long to explain. But a minute ago the house began creaking and swaying. It is preparing to expel people from within itself.’

It was hard for me to tell if Fandorin was joking or was simply raving. I rather inclined towards the latter option, because it was not funny enough to be a joke.

‘Mr Fandorin, are you asleep?’ I enquired, and at that very moment the windows suddenly went dark.

Half a minute later the door opened and two people came out.

‘There is no one left in the house; it is empty n-now,’ Fandorin pronounced slowly, then suddenly grabbed hold of my elbow and whispered rapidly. ‘It’s Lind, Lind, Lind!’

I jerked my head round with a start and saw that Erast Petrovich had completely changed: his face was tense, his eyes were narrowed in an expression of intense concentration.

Could it really be Lind after all?

One of the two who had come out was the Postman – I recognised his build and the peaked cap. The other man was average in height, wearing a long operatic cloak like an almaviva thrown over his shoulders and a Calabrian hat with a sagging brim that hung very low.

‘Number two,’ Fandorin whispered, squeezing my elbow in a grip that was extremely painful.

‘Eh? What?’ I muttered in confusion. ‘Alternative number two. Lind is here, but the hostages are somewhere else.’

‘But are you certain it really is Lind?’

‘No doubt about it. Those precise, economical and yet elegant movements. That way of wearing the hat. And finally that walk. It is he.’

My voice trembled as I asked: ‘Are we going to take him now?’

‘You have forgotten everything, Ziukin. We would detain Lind if he had come out with the hostages, according to alternative number one. But this is number two. We follow the doctor; he leads us to the boy and Emilie.’

‘But what if—’

Erast Petrovich put his hand over my mouth again, in the same way as he had done before so recently. The man in the long cloak had looked round, although we were talking in whispers and he could not possibly have heard us.

I pushed Fandorin’s hand away angrily and asked my question anyway: ‘But what if they are not going to the hostages?’

‘The time is five minutes past three,’ he replied, apropos of nothing at all.

‘I didn’t ask you the time,’ I said, angered by his evasiveness. ‘You are always making me out—’

‘Have you really forgotten,’ Fandorin interrupted, ‘that we made an appointment with the doctor at four in the morning? If Lind wishes to be punctual, he needs to collect the prisoners as quickly as possible in order to get to the waste g-ground by the Petrovsky Palace on time.’

The fact that Erast Petrovich had started stammering again suggested that he was feeling a little less tense. And for some reason I also stopped trembling and feeling angry.

The moment Lind (if it was indeed he) and the Postman turned the corner, we skipped back over the fence. I thought in passing that since I had met Mr Fandorin I had climbed more walls and fences than at any other time in my life, even when was I was a child.

‘Get into the carriage and follow me with caution,’ Erast Petrovich instructed me as he walked along. ‘Get out at every corner and look round it. I shall signal to you to drive on or to wait.’

And in precisely that unhurried manner we reached the boulevard, where Fandorin suddenly beckoned for us to drive up to him.

‘They have taken a cab and are going to Sretenka Street,’ he said as he sat down beside me. ‘Come on now, Vologda. Follow them, only don’t get too close.’

For quite a long time we drove along a succession of boulevards, sometimes moving downhill at a spanking pace and then slowing to drive up an incline. Although it was the middle of the night, the streets were not empty. There were small groups of people walking along, making lively conversation, and several times we were overtaken by other carriages. In St Petersburg they like to poke fun at the old capital city for supposedly taking to its bed with the dusk, but apparently this was far from true. You would never see so many people out walking on Nevsky Prospect at three o’clock in the morning.

We kept driving straight ahead, and turned only once, at the statue of Pushkin, onto a large street that I immediately recognised as Tverskaya. From here to the Petrovsky Palace it was three or four versts straight along the same route that the imperial procession had followed during the ceremonial entry into the old capital, only in the opposite direction.

On Tverskaya Street there were even more people and carriages, and they were all moving in the same direction as we were. This seemed very strange to me, but I was thinking about something else.

‘They are not stopping anywhere!’ I eventually exclaimed, unable to contain myself. ‘I think they are going straight to the meeting place!’

Fandorin did not answer. In the dim light of the gas lamps his face looked pale and lifeless.

‘Perhaps Lind still has some accomplices after all, and the hostages will be delivered directly to the rendezvous?’ he speculated after a long pause, but his voice somehow lacked its habitual self-confidence.

‘What if they have already been . . .’ I could not bring myself to finish the dreadful thought.

Erast Petrovich spoke slowly, in a quiet voice, but his reply sent shivers running down my spine: ‘Then at least we still have Lind.’

After the Triumphal Gates and the Alexander Railway Station, the separate groups of people fused into a single continuous stream that spread across the roadway as well as the pavements and our horse was forced to slow to a walk. But Lind’s carriage was not moving any faster – I could still see the two hats beyond the lowered leather hood ahead of us: the doctor’s floppy headgear and the Postman’s peaked cap.

‘Good Lord, it’s the eighteenth today!’ I exclaimed, almost jumping off the seat when I remembered the significance of the date. ‘Mr Fandorin, there cannot be any meeting on the waste ground! With so many problems on my mind, I completely forgot about the programme of events for the coronation! On Saturday the eighteenth of May there are to be public revels on the open ground opposite the Petrovsky Palace, with free food and drink and the distribution of souvenirs. There must be a hundred thousand people on that waste ground now!’

‘Damn!’ Fandorin swore nervously. ‘I didn’t take that into account either. But then I didn’t think that there would be any meeting. I just wrote down the first thing that came into my head. What an unforgivable blunder!’

On every side we could hear excited voices – some not entirely sober – and jolly laughter. For the most part the crowd consisted of simple people, which was only natural – free honey cakes and sweet spiced drinks were hardly likely to attract a more respectable public, who if they did come to take a look out of curiosity would go into the grandstands, where entrance was by ticket only. They said that at the last coronation as many as three hundred thousand people had gathered for the public festivities, and this time probably even more would come. Well, here they were. People must have been making their way there all night long.

‘Tell me, Mister Policeman, is it true what they say, that they’re going to give everyone a pewter mug and fill it right up to the brim with vodka?’ our driver asked, turning his round animated face towards us. He had obviously been infected by the mood of the festive crowd.

‘Halt,’ Erast Petrovich ordered.

I saw that Lind’s cab had stopped, although there was still a long way to go before the turn to the Petrovsky Palace.

‘They’re getting out!’ I exclaimed.

Fandorin handed the cabby a banknote and we set off at a sprint, pushing through the slow-moving crowd.

Although there was a half-moon peering through the clouds, it was quite dark, and so we decided to move a little closer, to a distance of about ten paces. There were bonfires blazing in the open field on the left of the road and on the right, behind the bushes, and so the two silhouettes, one taller and the other slightly shorter, were clearly visible.

‘We must not lose sight of them,’ I kept repeating to myself over and over, like an incantation.

During those minutes of pursuit I seemed to forget all about His Highness and Mademoiselle Declique. Some ancient and powerful instinct that had nothing to do with pity and was stronger than fear set my heart pounding rapidly but steadily. I had never understood the attraction of the hunt, but now it suddenly occurred to me that the hounds must feel something like this when the pack is unleashed to run down the wolf.

We were forcing our way through a genuine crush now, almost like Nevsky Prospect at the height of the day. From time to time we had to put our elbows to work. A hulking factory hand pushed in front of us and blocked our view. I managed somehow to squeeze through under his elbow and gasped in horror. Lind and the Postman had disappeared!

I looked round despairingly at Fandorin. He drew himself up to his full height and, I think, even stood on tiptoe as he gazed around.

‘What can we do?’ I shouted. ‘My God, what can we do?’

‘You go right; I’ll go left,’ he said.

I dashed to the edge of the road. There were people sitting on the grass in large and small groups. Others were wandering aimlessly among the trees, and in the distance a choir was singing out of tune. Lind was not on my side. I rushed back to the road and collided with Erast Petrovich, who was forcing his way through towards me.

‘We’ve let them get away . . .’ I wailed.

It was all over. I covered my face with my hands in order not to see the crowd, the bonfires, the dark dove-grey sky.

Fandorin shook me impatiently by the shoulder. ‘Don’t give up, Ziukin. Here’s the wasteland where the meeting was set. We’ll walk around, keep looking and wait for the dawn. Lind won’t go anywhere. He needs us as much as we need him.’

He was right, and I tried to take myself in hand and focus my mind.

‘The stone,’ I said, suddenly feeling anxious. ‘You haven’t lost the stone, have you?’

If we could just get them back alive, and then come what may. That was all I could think of at that moment.

‘No, it is here,’ said Fandorin, slapping himself on the chest.

We were being bumped and jostled from all sides, and he took firm hold of my arm.

‘You look to the right, Ziukin, and I shall look to the left. We’ll walk slowly. If you see the men we are looking for, do not shout, simply nudge me in the side.’

I had never walked arm-in-arm with a man before. Or indeed with a woman, with the exception of one brief affair a very long time before, when I was still very green and stupid. I will not recall it here – the story is really not worth the effort.

The nights are short in May. There was already a strip of pink along the horizon in the east, and the twilight was beginning to brighten. It was obvious that many people had camped here the evening before, and it was becoming more and more crowded around the campfires. Occasionally I could feel empty bottles under my feet. And the crowds kept on coming along the main road from Moscow.

On the left, beyond the barriers and lines of police, there was a wide open field covered with specially built fairground booths and pavilions with walls of freshly cut timber. That was probably where the tsar’s gifts to the people were being kept. I cringed at the thought of the pandemonium that would break out here in a few hours time, when this sea of people, their patience exhausted by hours of waiting, went flooding past the barriers.

We wandered from the barriers to the palace and back – once, twice, three times. It was already light, and every time it was harder to force our way through the ever-denser mass of bodies. I continually turned my head to and fro, surveying the half of the area that had been assigned to me, and I struggled with all my strength against a rising tide of despair.

Somewhere in the distance a bugle sounded a clamorous reveille, and I remembered that the Khodynsk army camps were not far away.

I suppose it must be seven o’clock, I thought, trying to recall exactly when reveille was. And at that very second I suddenly saw the familiar Calabrian hat with the civil servant’s cap beside it.

‘There they are!’ I howled, tugging on Fandorin’s sleeve with all my might. ‘Thank God!’

The Postman looked round, saw me and shouted: ‘Ziukin!’

His companion glanced round for a moment – just long enough for me to catch a glimpse of his spectacles and beard – and then they plunged into the very thickest part of the crowd, where it was jostling right up against the barriers.

‘After them!’ cried Erast Petrovich, giving me a furious shove.

There was a stout merchant in front of us and he simply would not make way. Without the slightest hesitation, Fandorin grabbed his collar with one hand and the hem of his long frock coat with the other, and threw him aside. We went dashing through the crowd, with Erast Petrovich leading the way. He carved through the throng like an admiralty launch slicing through the waves, leaving rolling breakers on each side. From time to time he jumped incredibly high into the air – obviously to avoid losing sight of Lind again.

‘They’re forcing their way through towards the Khodynsk Field!’ Erast Petrovch shouted to me. ‘That’s quite excellent! There’s no crowd there but a lot of police!’

We’ll catch them now, any moment now, I realised, and suddenly feltmystrength increase tenfold. I drewlevel with Fandorin and barked: ‘Make way there!’

Closer to the barriers the most prudent and patient of the spectators were standing absolutely chock-a-block, and our rate of progress slowed.

‘Move aside!’ I roared. ‘Police!’

‘Ha, there’s a cunning one!’

Someone punched me so hard in the side that everythingwent black and I gasped for breath.

Erast Petrovich took out his police whistle and blew it. The crowd reeled back and parted at the harsh sound, and we advanced a few more steps with relative ease, but then coarse caftans, pea jackets and peasant shirts closed back together again.

Lind and the Postman were very close now. I saw them duck under a barrier into the open space right in front of the police cordon. Aha, now they were caught!

I saw the hat lean across to the cap and whisper something into it.

The Postman turned back, waved his arms in the air and bellowed: ‘Good Orthodox people! Look! On that side they’re pouring in from the Vaganka! They’ve broken through! They’ll get all the mugs! Forward, lads!’

A single roar was vented from a thousand throats. ‘Hah, the cunning swine! We’ve been here all night, and they want to grab the lot! Like hell they will!’

I was suddenly swept forward by a force so irresistible that my feet were lifted off the ground. Everything around me started moving, and everyone scrabbled with their elbows, trying to force a way through to the tents and pavilions.

I heard whistles trilling and shots fired into the air ahead of me. Then someone roared through a megaphone: ‘Go back! Go back! You’ll all be crushed!’

A chorus of voices replied cheerfully: ‘Don’t you worry, yer ’onour! Press on, lads!’

A woman shrieked desperately.

Somehow I managed to find the ground with my feet and move along with the crowd. Fandorinwas no longer there beside me – he had been swept away somewhere to one side. I almost stumbled when I stepped on something soft and did not immediately realise that it was a person. I caught a glimpse of a trampled soldier’s white tunic under my feet, but it was impossible to help the fallen man as my hands were pinned tight against my sides.

Then bodies began falling more and more often, and I could only think of one thing: God forbid that I might lose my footing – there was no way I would ever get up again. To my left there was someone running along over the people’s shoulders and heads, with his black tarred boots twinkling. Suddenly he swayed, flung up his arms and went crashing down.

I was being carried straight towards the sharp corner of a planking pavilion covered in fresh splinters. I tried to veer a little to one side, but it was hopeless.

‘Take him!’ voices shouted from my right. ‘Take the little one!’

They were passing a boy of about eight from one pair of raised hands to another. He was gazing around in terror and sniffing with his bloody nose.

I was flung against the wall and my cheek dragged across the splinters, making the tears spurt from my eyes. I struck my temple against a carved window frame and as I started slipping down I had just enough time to think: It’s over. Now they will crush me.

Someone gripped me under the armpits and jerked me back onto my feet. Fandorin. I was already so stunned that his appearance did not surprise me in the least.

‘Brace your hands against the wall!’ he shouted. ‘Otherwise they’ll crush you!’

He swung his arm and smashed out the patterned shutter with a single blow of his fist. Then he picked me up by my sides and thrust me up with incredible strength so that I flew over the window sill rather than climbed it, and landed with a crash on a floor that smelled of fresh wood shavings. There were neat pyramids of coronation mugs standing all around me. Erast Petrovich hauled himself up and also climbed into the pavilion. One of his eyebrowswas split, his uniformwas tattered, his sabre had come halfway out of its scabbard.

Were we really safe now?

I looked out of the windowand saw that the fieldwas jammed solid with people out of their minds. Screaming, groaning, crunching sounds, laughter – all of these were mingled together in the hubbub. There had to be a million of them! Clouds of dust swirled and shimmered in the air, transforming it into a thick fatty broth.

Someone had climbed into the next pavilion and began throwing mugs and sacks of presents out of the window. A brawl immediately started up beside the wall there.

‘Oh Lord, save Thy people,’ I blurted out, and my hand reached up of its own accord to make the sign of the cross.

‘What are you up to?’ someone shouted up at us. ‘Toss out the mugs! Is there any drink?’

The pavilion creaked and wood dust sprinkled down from the ceiling. I cried out in horror as I saw our frail refuge falling to pieces. Something struck me on the back of my head, and it was a relief when I lost consciousness.

I do not know who dragged me out from under the debris and then carried me to a safe place, or why they did it. In all probability I was once again indebted to Fandorin for saving me, although I do not find that a pleasant thought.

However it happened, I came round on a wooden grandstand at the edge of the Khodynsk Field. The sun was already high in the sky. I lifted my head, then immediately dropped it again, hitting it hard against the rough surface of the bench. I then managed to sit up after a fashion and felt my pounding head with my hands. It did not feel as if it was really mine. Although there was a substantial lump on the top of it, otherwise I seemed to be more or less unhurt. Fandorin was nowhere to be seen. I was in a strange drowsy state and could not get rid of the metallic ringing sound in my ears.

The first thing I did was survey the vast field. I saw booths and pavilions twisted awry and tight lines of soldiers moving slowly across the grass. And everywhere, almost completely covering the ground, therewere bodies: many were motionless, but some were still moving. It was distressing to watch, this feeble stirring. There was a buzzing in my temples and my eyes were blinded by the bright sun. I tucked my head into my crossed arms and either fell asleep or fainted. I do not know how long I sat there, leaning against the skirting of the grandstand, but the next time I woke up it was long after midday and the field was empty. There were no soldiers and no bodies.

My head was no longer hurting so badly, but I felt very thirsty.

I sat there, wondering feebly if I ought to go somewhere or if it would be better to stay where I was. I stayed, and it was the right thing to do, because soon Erast Petrovich appeared. He was stillwearing his police uniform, but his bootswere absolutely filthy and his white gloves black with soil.

‘Are you back with us?’ he asked in a gloomy voice. ‘My God, Ziukin, what a disaster. The only time I ever saw the like was at Plevna. Thousands killed and mutilated. This is the worst of all Lind’s atrocities. He has taken an army of slaves with him into the grave like some ancient king.’

‘So Lind was crushed too?’ I asked without any great interest, still unable to shake off my lethargic drowsiness.

‘I cannot see how he could possibly have survived in such a crush. However, let us go and check. The soldiers and police have just finished laying out the mangled bodies for identification – over there, along the side of the road. The line of the dead is almost a verst long. But how can we identify him? We don’t even know what he looks like. Except perhaps for the cloak . . . Let’s go, Ziukin, let’s go.’

I limped along after him.

The line of dead bodies stretched along the main highway, running as far as the eye could see in both directions. Therewere cabs and carts driving out from Moscow as the order had been given to transport the dead to the Vagankovskoe Cemetery, but they had not started moving them yet.

There were high-ranking officials striding about everywhere with sombre faces: military officers, police officers, civilians, each one accompanied by his own retinue. Oh, you will all get it in the neck for allowing the coronation to be wrecked, I thought, but more in sympathy than condemnation. It was Lind who had started the slaughter, but it was the men in charge who would have to pay.

I had a strange feeling as I slowly walked along the side of the road – as if I were some kind of high noble reviewing a parade of the dead. Many of the corpses grinned at me, theirwhite teeth exposed in their flattened faces. From the beginning I felt as if I were frozen, and then I completely turned to stone, which was probably all for the best. I only stopped once, beside that boy whom they had tried to pass out of the crowd. Evidently they had failed. I stared with apathetic curiosity at the transparent blueness of his wide staring eyes and hobbled on. There were quite a number of people staring into the dead faces like Fandorin and myself – some looking for relatives, some simply curious.

‘Look at this, look here,’ I heard a voice say. ‘What a rich man he was, eh?’

A crowd of idlers had gathered round one dead body, and there was a police constable on guard. It was just another dead body – skinny, with straw-coloured hair and a crushed nose – but there were about a dozen purses and several watches on chains laid out on its chest.

‘A pickpocket,’ a lively old man explained to me and clicked his tongue regretfully. ‘That old buzzard fate didn’t spare him either. And he was expecting such a rich haul.’

Ahead of mesomeone started howling – theymust have recognised a dear one – and I hurried on to get past as quickly as possible.

I strode on rapidly for about another twenty paces, and then my stupor seemed to vanish as if by magic. That black frock coat was familiar!

Yes, it was definitely him. The Postman!

Fandorin also saw him and walked over quickly. He squatted down.

The face of the doctor’s helper was entirely undamaged apart from the imprint of the sole of someone’s boot on one cheek. I was struck very powerfully by the expression of surprise on the frozen features. What had he found so astonishing in the final moment of his criminal life? What had he seen that was so incredible? The gaping abyss of hell?

Erast Petrovich straightened up abruptly and declared in a hoarse voice: ‘Lind is alive!’

Seeing my eyebrows shoot up in bewilderment, he bent down, parted the corpse’s blood-soaked clothes and unbuttoned its shirt to expose the pale hairy chest. There was a neat black triangular wound just below the left nipple.

‘There, you see it,’ Fandorin said in a quiet voice. ‘A familiar sign. That is Lind’s stiletto. The doctor remains true to himself – he leaves no witnesses.’ Erast Petrovich straightened up and looked in the direction of Moscow. ‘Let’s go, Ziukin. There’s nothing more we can do here. Quickly!’

He strode off rapidly, almost running, in the direction of the Petrovsky Palace.

‘Where are you going?’ I shouted, chasing after him.

‘Where else but the Postman’s house? Lind might still be there. After all, he doesn’t know that we discovered his hideaway.’

We could not walk all the way into Moscow, and all the cabs had been commandeered by the police to transport the dead, after the wounded had been taken to the hospitals in the morning. The carriages were setting off one after the other in the direction of the Tverskaya Gate, each bearing a doleful cargo.

High Police Master Lasovsky walked past, surrounded by a group of blue uniforms. I hastily turned my face away, only realising afterwards that in my present condition it would have been almost impossible to recognise me, not to mention the fact that just at that moment Afanasii Ziukin was probably the very last thing on the colonel’s mind. The kidnapping of Mikhail Georgievich, even the disappearance of the Orlov, paled into insignificance in comparison with the tragedy that had just taken place. Fate had not inflicted such a blow on a new monarch in Russia since at least 1825. Good Lord. What an international scandal! And what a monstrous omen for the reign just begun!

The high police master’s face was pale and miserable. Naturally, for he would be held responsible in the first instance. Mere resignation would not be enough. The person in charge of arranging the coronation festivities was the governor general of Moscow, but how could you bring the uncle of His Imperial Majesty to trial? But someone at the top of the local authorities had to be tried. Why had they not foreseen that there would be so many people? Why had they set up such a weak cordon?

Fandorin drew himself erect and saluted the police chief smartly, but Lasovsky did not even glance in our direction.

‘Excellent,’ Erast Petrovich said to me in a low voice. ‘There’s our cab.’

A short distance away I saw the high police master’s famous carriage, harnessed to a pair of black trotters. The coachman Sychov, frequently mentioned by the Moscow newspapers in connection with the indefatigable police chief’s daily outings in search of drunken yard keepers and negligent constables, was solemnly ensconced on the coach box.

Erast Petrovich drew his sword and dashed towards the carriage, jangling his spurs smartly.

‘An urgent dispatch!’ he shouted at the coachman and jumped straight into the carriage at a run. ‘Come on, Sychov, wake up! An order from the high police master!’ He turned back to me and saluted. ‘Your Excellency, I implore you, quickly now!’

The coachman glanced at the brusque officer and looked at me. I was wearing the simple jacket taken from the German bandit, but Sychov did not seem particularly surprised. On an insane day like this, God only knew who the high police master’s two in hand might be ordered to carry.

‘Open your eyes wider, stare hard,’ Fandorin whispered as he took a seat facing me. ‘You’re an important individual. They don’t drive just anybody around in this carriage.’

I drew myself erect and, as befits a genuinely important individual, directed my gaze a little to the side and up, gathering my forehead into stately wrinkles. Thank God I had seen enough ministers and generals in my time.

‘Drive on, Sychov, drive on!’ Erast Petrovich barked, prodding the driver in his cotton-wadded back.

The coachman hastily shook his reins, the wonderful horses set off at a trot, and the carriage swayed gently on its soft springs.

Every now and then Sychov bellowed: ‘Mind yourselves, there!’

The bleached white trunks of the roadside poplars flashed by. The bleak queue of carts covered with sackcloth fell further and further behind. People on the pavements turned round to gaze in hope and fear – or at least it seemed to me that they did – and policemen saluted.

Erast Petrovich ordered the coachman to stop at the Alexander Railway Station. We got out, Erast Petrovich dropped his visiting card on the leather seat and waved for Sychov to drive back to where he had come from.

We got into a cab and drove off at a spanking pace towards Myasnitskaya Street.

‘What’s happening up there on the Khodynka, Your Honour?’ the cabby asked, turning towards us. ‘They’re saying as the Yids poured dope into the official wine, so the people was drugged, and nigh on a hundred thousand Orthodox folk was crushed. Is that true or not?’

‘It’s a lie,’ Erast Petrovich replied curtly. ‘Drive on, drive on!’

We flew into the familiar side street with a rumble and a clatter. Fandorin jumped down and beckoned the yard keeper with an imperious gesture.

‘Wholives at that address?’ he asked, pointing to the Postman’s house.

‘Post Office Attendant Mr Ivan Zakharovich Tereshchenko,’ the yard keeper replied, saluting with his broom held rigidly to attention.

‘Retired army man?’ Erast Petrovich enquired sternly.

‘Yes, sir, Your Honour! Private First Class of the Prince Heinrich of Prussia Sixth Dragoons Regiment Fyodor Svishch!’

‘Very well, Svishch. This gentleman and I have come to carry out the arrest of this Tereshchenko. You have awhistle. Go round to the back of the house from the courtyard and keep your eyes on the windows. If he tries to get out, whistle for all you’re worth. Is that clear?’

‘Yes, sir, Your Honour!’

‘And wait!’ Fandorin shouted after the former private, first class, who was already dashing off to carry out his orders. ‘Do you have a crowbar? Bring it here and then take up your post.’

We ourselves took up a position on the porch where we could not be seen from the windows.

Erast Petrovich rang the bell and then knocked on the door.

‘Tereshchenko! Mr Tereshchenko! Open up, this is the local inspector of police! In connection with today’s events!’

He put his ear to the door.

‘Break it open, Ziukin.’

I had never held such a crude instrument as an iron crowbar in my hands before, never mind used it to break in a door. It turned out to be far from simple. I struck the lock once, twice, three times. The door shuddered but it did not open. Then I stuck the flat sharp end into the crack, leaned against it and tried to lever the lock apart, but that did not work either.

‘Right. Damn you and your crowbar, Ziukin!’

Erast Petrovich moved me aside. Grabbing the porch railings he launched himself into the air and smashed both of his feet into the door, which went crashing inwards and hung crookedly on one hinge.

We quickly ran through all the rooms with Fandorin clutching a little black revolver at the ready. No one. Scattered items of clothing, false beards, a ginger wig, a few canes, cloaks and hats, crumpled banknotes on the floor.

‘We’re too late!’ Erast Petrovich sighed. ‘Just a little bit too late!’

I groaned in disappointment, but he looked round the small drawing room carefully and then suddenly said in a quiet stealthy voice: ‘Ah, but this is interesting.’

There was an open casket standing on a small table beside the window. Fandorin took out a long object that glittered in his fingers, giving off yellow sparks.

‘What is that?’ I asked in amazement.

‘I presume it is the celebrated coronet,’ he replied, keenly examining the diadem, which was encrusted with priceless yellow diamonds and opals. ‘And here is the Empress Anna’s clasp, and the Empress Elisaveta’s neckband, and the small d-diamond bouquet with a spinel, and the, what’s it called . . . aigrette. I promised Her Imperial Majesty that her jewels from the coffret would be returned safe and sound, and that is what has happened.’

I dashed across to the casket and froze in awe. What a stroke of luck! All of these fabulous jewels glowing with the sacred aura of the history of the imperial house, safely returned to the throne! This alonewas enough to justify Fandorin’s entire wild adventure and totally restoremyown good name. The only possible greater happiness would be the rescue of Mikhail Georgievich and Mademoiselle Declique.

But of course Fandorin was delighted by this miraculous discovery for a completely different reason.

‘Lind was here only very recently and evidently intends to return. That is one. He really does have no one left to help him. He is quite alone. That is two. And finally we have an excellent chance of catching him. That is three.’

I thought for a moment and worked out the logic for myself: ‘If he was not planning to return, he would not have left the casket behind, right? And if he still had any helpers, he would have left them to guard the treasure. What are we going to do?’

‘First of all, mend the front d-door.’

We dashed back into the entrance hall. The blow from Fandorin’s feet had torn one hinge out bodily, but that was not the only problem. Far worse was the fact that a crowd of onlookers had gathered and they were staring avidly at the windows and the gaping hole.

‘Damnation!’ Erast Petrovich groaned. ‘We raised such a racket that the entire street has come running to look, and in ten minutes the entire b-block will be here! Soon the real police will turn up and spoil everything for us. No, we won’t see Lind here again. But at least we have to check to see if any clues have been left behind.’

He went back inside and started picking up the clothes scattered on the floors of the rooms, paying special attention to a narrow shoe covered in dust. Its partner was nowhere nearby.

Meanwhile I went out into the cramped corridor and, for lack of anything better to do, glanced into the small untidy kitchen with a tiled stove in the corner. I found nothing remarkable in the kitchen apart from a very large number of cockroaches, and I was about to leave it when my eyes fell on a trapdoor set into the floor. It must be a cellar, I thought, and suddenly felt as if I had been nudged by some mysterious force. Simply in order to kill time while Fandorin was carrying out his search, I leaned down and lifted up the door. The dark opening exuded that special mouldy smell of dampness and earth, the smell that cellars where beetroot, carrots and potatoes are kept ought to have.

Just as I was just about to close the door, I heard a sound that made me turn cold and then set me trembling. It was a groan, weak but quite unmistakable!

‘Mr Fandorin!’ I shouted at the top of my voice. ‘Come here!’

AndItooktheparaffinlampoffthekitchentablewithtrembling hands, lit it with a match and went downinto the darkness and the cold. When Iwas only halfway down the steps, I sawher.

Mademoiselle Declique was lying huddled up against the wall on some grey sacks. She was wearing nothing but her shift – my eyes were drawn to a slim ankle with a bruise around the bone, and I hastily averted my eyes – but thiswas no time for respecting the proprieties.

I set the lamp down on a barrel (to judge from the smell, it must have contained pickled cabbage) and dashed over to where she lay. Her head was thrown back and her eyes were closed. I saw that one of Emilie’s hands was handcuffed to an iron ring set into thewall. Mademoiselle’s poor facewas covered with bruises and blotches of dried blood. Her undershirt had slipped down off onewhite shoulder, and I sawa huge bruise above her collarbone.

‘Ziukin, are you down there?’ Fandorin’s voice called from somewhere above me.

I did not reply because I had rushed to examine the other corners of the cellar. But His Highness was not there.

I went back to Mademoiselle and cautiously raised her head.

‘Can you hear me?’ I asked.

Fandorin jumped down onto the floor and stood behind me. Mademoiselle opened her eyes, then screwed them up against the light of the lamp and smiled. ‘Athanas, comme tu es marrant sans les favoris. Je t’ai vu dans mes rкves. Je rкve toujours . . .’¹

She was clearly not well, otherwise she would never have spoken to me in such a familiar manner.

My heart was breaking with pity for her. But Fandorin was less sentimental.

He moved me aside and slapped the prisoner on the cheek.

‘Emilie, oщ est le prince?’²

‘Je ne sais pas . . . ’³ she whispered and her eyes closed again.

‘What, have you not guessed who Lind is?’ Emilie said, looking at Fandorin incredulously. ‘And Iwas certain that with your great intellect you had solved everything. Ah, it seems so simple to me now! Truly, we were all blind.’

Erast Petrovich looked embarrassed, and I must admit that the solution seemed very far from simple to me.

The conversationwas taking place in French, since after everything that Mademoiselle had suffered it would simply have been too cruel to torment her with Russian grammar. I had noticed before that when Fandorin spoke foreign languages he did not stammer at all, but I had not had any time to ponder this surprising phenomenon. It seemed that his ailment – for I considered stammering to be a psychological ailment – was in some way linked to expressing himself in Russian. Could this stumbling over the sounds of his native tongue perhaps be an expression of secret hostility to Russia and all things Russian? That would not have surprised me in the least.

We had arrived at our rented apartment half an hour before. Fandorinwas holding the casket, but I had an even more precious burden: Iwas carrying Emilie, muffled up in Doctor Lind’s cloak. Mademoiselle’s body was smooth and very hot – I could feel that even through the material. That must have been why I started feeling feverish myself, and I could not recover my breath for a long time, although Mademoiselle was not at all heavy.

We decided to put our dear guest in one of the bedrooms. I laid the poor woman on the bed, quickly covered her with a blanket and wiped the drops of sweat off my forehead.

Fandorin sat down beside her and said: ‘Emilie, we cannot call a doctor for you. Monsieur Ziukin and I are, so to speak, outside the law at present. If you will permit me, I will examine and treat your wounds and contusions myself, I do have certain skills in that area. You must not feel shy with me.’

And now, why this? I thought, outraged. What incredible impudence!

But Mademoiselle did not find Fandorin’s suggestion impudent at all. ‘This is no time for me to be shy,’ she said, smiling feebly. ‘I shall be very grateful to you for your help. I hurt all over. As you can see, the kidnappers did not treat me very gallantly.’

‘Afanasii Stepanovich, heat some water,’ Fandorin ordered briskly in Russian. ‘And I saw some alcohol and embrocation in the bathroom.’

The famous surgeon Pirogov in person! Nonetheless I did as he said, and also brought some clean napkins, mercurochrome and adhesive plaster that I found in one of the drawers in the bathroom.

Before the examination began, Mademoiselle cast a timid glance in my direction. I hastily turned away, and I am afraid that I blushed.

I heard the rustle of light fabric. Fandorin said anxiously: ‘Good Lord, you’re bruised all over. Does this hurt?’

‘No, not much.’

‘And this?’

‘Yes!’

‘I think the rib is cracked. I’ll strap it with the plaster for the time being. How about here, under the collarbone?’

‘It hurts when you press.’

There was a mirror not far away on the wall. I realised that if I took two sly steps to the right I would be able to see what was happening on the bed, but I immediately felt ashamed of this unworthy thought and moved to the left instead.

‘Turn over,’ Erast Petrovich ordered. ‘I’ll feel your vertebrae.’

‘Yes, yes, it hurts there. On the coccyx.’

I gritted my teeth. This was becoming genuinely unbearable! I regretted not having gone out into the corridor.

‘Someone kicked you,’ Fandorin stated. ‘It’s a very sensitive spot, but we’ll put a compress on it, like that. And here too. Never mind, it will hurt for a few days and then get better.’

I heard water splashing, and Mademoiselle groaned quietly a few times.

‘It is all over, Athanas. You can revolve now,’ I heard her say in Russian and immediately turned round. Emilie was lying on her back, covered up to her chest with the blanket. She had a neat piece of white plaster on her left eyebrow, one corner of her mouth was red from mercurochrome, and I could see the edge of a napkin under her open collar.

I could not look Mademoiselle in the eye and glanced sideways at Fandorin, who was washing his hands in a basin with a self-composed air, like a genuine doctor. I bit my lip at the thought that those strong slim fingers had touched Emilie’s skin, and in places that it was impossible even to think about without feeling giddy. But the most surprising thing was that Mademoiselle did not seem embarrassed at all and was looking at Fandorin with a grateful smile.

‘Thank you, Erast.’

Erast!

‘Thank you. I feel a lot better now.’ She laughed quietly. ‘Alas, I have no more secrets from you now. As a respectable man you are obliged to marry me.’

This risquй joke made even Fandorin blush. And you can imagine how I felt.

In order to steer the conversation away from the indecent and painful direction that it had taken, I asked dryly: ‘Nevertheless, Mademoiselle Declique, where is His Highness?’

‘I do not know. We were separated as soon as we left the underground passage and kept in different places ever since then. The boy was unconscious, and I was very faint myself. They hit me quite hard on the head when I tried to shout.’

‘Yes, yes,’ Erast Petrovich said eagerly. ‘What were you trying to tell us? You shouted: “Lind’s here. He’s . . .” But not another word after that.’

‘Yes, he put his hand over my mouth and punched me in the face. I recognised him despite the mask.’

‘You recognised him!’ Erast Petrovich and I exclaimed in a single voice.

And then Mademoiselle raised her eyebrows in surprise and asked the question that embarrassed Fandorin so greatly.

‘What, have you not guessedwho Lind is?’ Emilie said, looking at Fandorin incredulously. ‘And Iwas certain that with your great intellect you had solved everything. Ah, it seems so simple to me now! Truly, we were all blind.’

Fandorin and I glanced at each other, and I could tell from his furtive expression that he wished to ascertainwhether I had been more quick-witted than he had. Unfortunately I had not. But I would have paid dearly to make it so.

‘Oh, good Lord. Why it’s Banville,’ she said, shaking her head in amazement at our slow-wittedness. ‘Or at least the person we knew as Lord Banville. I recognised his voice back there in the vault. When someone called down: “Alarm! Run!” Lind forgot his usual caution and shouted in English: “Take the kid and the slut! Run for it!” It was Banville!’

‘Banville?’ Erast Petrovich repeated, perplexed. ‘But how is that possible? Surely he is a friend of Georgii Alexandrovich? They have known each other for a long time!’

‘Not so very long,’ I put in, trying to gather my thoughts. ‘His Highness only made Banville’s acquaintance this spring, in Nice.’

‘I was not aware of that,’ Fandorin said hastily, as if he were trying to offer excuses. ‘Yes indeed, how simple . . .’ He changed from French to Russian and said: ‘Even Homer sometimes nods. But my own lack of insight in this case is absolutely unforgivable. Why, of course!’

He jumped up and started striding around the room, almost running in fact, and gesticulating fitfully. I had never seen him in such an agitated state. Thewords spurted from his lips, tumbling over each other.

‘The doctor began putting his plan into action in Nice. He must have gone there deliberately to seek out his future victim – so many Russian grand dukes go to the Cфte d’Azur in spring! And it was already known that the coronation would be in May! Win the trust of members of the imperial family, become a friend, obtain an invitation to the c-celebrations, and everything else was just a matter of precise technical preparation!’

‘And another thing!’ I put in. ‘A hatred of women. You said yourself that Lind cannot bear to have women around him. Now it is clear why. So Endlung was right!’

‘Endlung?’ Erast Petrovich echoed in a hollow voice and rubbed his forehead furiously, as if he wished to rub right through it to his brain. ‘Yes, yes indeed. And I attached no importance to his idiotic theory – precisely because it was that blockhead who thought of it. A genuine case of “Out of the mouths of fools . . .” Ah, Ziukin, snobbism is a truly terrible sin . . . Banville! It was Banville! And that fragrance, The Earl of Essex . . . How cleverly he gave himself freedom of movement by pretending to leave so suddenly! And the duel that came at just the right moment! And a shot straight to Glinsky’s heart – I recognise Lind’s diabolical accuracy in that! An excellent disguise: an eccentric British homosexual. The conceptual breadth and fine detailed planning, the incredible boldness and ruthlessness – these are definitely Lind’s signature! And I have failed to catch him again . . .’

‘But there is still Mr Carr,’ I reminded him. ‘He is Lind’s man too, surely?’

Erast Petrovich gestured hopelessly.

‘I assure you that Carr has nothing to do with all this. Otherwise Lind would not have left him behind. The doctor brought along his affected cutie to make his camouflage more convincing, and probably in order to combine work and pleasure. Lind is well known for his sybaritic habits. Dammit, the most upsetting thing is that Endlung was right! A gang of homosexuals, united not only by financial interests but by other ties as well. So that is the source of their great loyalty and self-sacrifice!’

Mademoiselle wrinkled up her forehead, listening attentively to Fandorin’s lamentations, and I think that she understood everything, or almost everything.

‘Oh yes, Lind really does hate women,’ she said with a bitter laugh. ‘I know that very well from my own experience. All the time I was a prisoner I was only given one piece of bread and two mugs of water. It was a good thing that barrel was there beside me, with that terrible cabbage of yours. I was kept on a chain, with no clothes. And yesterday evening Banville, I mean Lind, came down into the cellar as angry as a thousand devils and started kicking me without saying a word! I think he must have had some bad news. The pain was bad, but the fear was worse.’ Emilie shuddered and pulled the blanket right up to her chin. ‘He is not a man; he is pure evil. The doctor beat me without saying a single word and flew into such a rage that if the owner of the house had not been there he would probably have beaten me to death. The owner is quite a tall man with a gloomy face. He was the only one who did not hurt me. He gave me the bread and water.’

Mademoiselle gingerly touched the plaster on her forehead.

‘You saw what Lind did to me, Erast! The scum! And there was no reason for it!’

‘He was angry when he found out that he had lost two of his helpers,’ I explained. ‘Mr Fandorin killed one of them and handed the other over to the police.’

‘What a pity you did not kill both of them, Erast,’ she said, sniffing and wiping a tear of anger off her eyelashes. ‘Those Germans were absolute swine. Which of them did you kill, the lop-eared one or the one with freckles?’

‘The one with freckles,’ Erast Petrovich replied.

And I had not seen either of them properly – there was no time and it was dark in that passage.

‘Never mind,’ I observed. ‘At least now the doctor has been left entirely alone.’

Fandorin pursed his lips sceptically. ‘Hardly. There is still someone guarding the boy. If the poor boy is still alive . . .’

‘Oh, the little one is alive, I am sure of it!’ Mademoiselle exclaimed. ‘At least, he was still alive yesterday evening. When the owner of the house dragged that raging lunatic Banville off me, I heard him growl: “If not for the stone, I’d send him both heads – the kid’s and the slut’s.” I think he meant you, Erast.’

‘Thank God!’ I blurted out.

I turned towards the icon of St Nicholas hanging in the corner and crossed myself. Mikhail Georgievichwas alive, therewas still hope.

However, therewas another question thatwas still tormenting me. It was not the kind of question that one asks, and if one does ask, one has no right to expect a reply. Nonetheless, I decided that I would. ‘Tell me, did they . . . did they . . . abuse you?’

To make things quite clear, I spoke these words in French.

Thanks be to God, Emilie was not offended. On the contrary, she smiled sadly. ‘Yes, Athanas, they did abuse me, as you might have noticed from my bumps and bruises. The only comfort is that it was not the kind of abuse that you obviously have in mind. Those gentlemen would probably have preferred to kill themselves rather than enter into physical relations with a woman.’

This bold direct answer embarrassed me and I averted my eyes. If there was one thing about Mademoiselle Declique that I did not like, it was the unfeminine exactitude with which she expressed herself.

‘Well then, let us sum up,’ Fandorin declared, hooking his fingers together. ‘We have rescued Emilie from the clutches of Doctor Lind. That is one. We now know what the doctor looks like. That is two. We have recovered the empress’s jewels. That is three. Half of the job has been done. The rest is simple.’ He heaved a sigh, and I realised that he was using the word ‘simple’ ironically. ‘Rescue the boy. Eliminate Lind.’

‘Yes, yes!’ Mademoiselle exclaimed, lifting herself abruptly off the pillow. ‘Kill that foul beast!’ She looked at me with a plaintive expression and said in a feeble voice: ‘Athanas, you cannot imagine how hungry I am . . .’

Ah, what a stupid, insensitive blockhead! Fandorin was only interested in Lind, but I ought to have known better!

I went dashing towards the door, but Erast Petrovich grabbed hold of the flap of my jacket.

‘Where are you off to, Ziukin?’

‘Where? To the dining room. There is cheese and biscuits in the sideboard, and pвtй and ham in the icebox.’

‘No ham. A g-glass of sweet tea with rum and a piece of black bread. She must not have anything more yet.’

He was right. After fasting the stomach should not be burdened with heavy food. But I put in four spoons of sugar, cut a substantial slice of bread and splashed in a good helping of whisky from Mr Freyby’s bottle.

Mademoiselle drank the tea with a smile on her split lips, and the colour returned to her pale cheeks.

My heart was wrung with an inexpressible pity. If I could have got my hands on that vile Doctor Lind, who had kicked and beaten a helpless woman, I would have put my hands round his neck and no power on earth could have forced my fingers apart.

‘You need to get some sleep, Emilie,’ Fandorin said, getting to his feet. ‘We will decide in the morning how to proceed from here. Afanasii Petrovich,’ he said, switching into Russian, ‘will you agree to spend the night here, on the couch? In case Emilie might need something?’

Need he have asked! I wanted so much to be alone with her. Just to be there, not to talk. Or, if there was a chance, to speak of the feelings that filled my heart. But where would I find the words?

Fandorin left the room. Emilie looked at me with a smile, and I sat there, a pitiful awkward creature, licking my lips, clearing my throat, clasping and unclasping my fingers. Finally I gathered the courage to speak.

‘I . . . I missed you very badly, Mademoiselle Declique.’

‘You may call me Emilie,’ she said in a quiet voice.

‘Verywell. That will really not be excessive familiarity, because after all that you have been through – that is, that you and I have been through – I dare to hope that you and I . . .’ I hesitated and blushed painfully. ‘That you and I . . .’

‘Yes?’ she said with an affectionate nod. ‘Tell me. Tell me.’

‘That you and I can think of ourselves not just as colleagues, but as friends.’

‘Friends?’

I thought I heard a note of disappointment in her voice.

‘Well, of course I am not so presumptuous as to expect a particularly close or intimate friendship.’ I corrected myself quickly so that she would not think Iwas exploiting the situation in order to inveigle myself into her confidence. ‘We have simply become good companions. And I am very glad of it . . . There.’

I did not say any more, because I thought there had in any case already been a highly significant shift in our relationship: the right to address each other by our first names had been legitimised, and in addition I had offered her my friendship, and my offer seemed to have been received favourably.

And yet Emilie was looking at me as if she had been expecting something else.

‘You regard me as a friend, a companion?’ she asked after a long pause, as if she were making quite sure.

‘Yes, as a dear friend,’ I confirmed, casting my reserve aside.

Then Mademoiselle sighed, closed her eyes and said in a quiet voice: ‘I’m sorry, Athanas. I am very tired. I am going to sleep.’

I could not tell when she fell asleep. Her breast carried on rising and falling evenly, her long eyelashes fluttered slightly, and occasionally a shadow ran across her face like a small cloud passing over the smooth surface of bright azure waters.

I spent the whole night alternating between brief periods of shallow sleep and periods of wakefulness. Emilie only had to stir or sigh and I immediately opened my eyes, wondering if I should bring her some water, tuck her in or adjust her pillow. I was not at all distressed by these frequent awakenings; on the contrary, I found them pleasant, even delightful. It was a long, long time since I had felt such peace.

¹Athanas, how funny you are without your sideburns. I dreamed about you. I am still dreaming.

²Emilie, where is the prince?

³I do not know . . .

19 May

I served a genuine breakfast: with chinaware and silverware on a starched tablecloth. Without a chef of course it is impossible to prepare anything proper, but even so there was an omelette and cheeses and smoked meats.

Emiliewas lookingmuch better today and she ate with a great appetite. Her eyes flashed with life and her voice was strong and cheerful. Women possess an astounding ability to recover from the most grievous of ailments if the conditions of their life suddenly change for the better. I had had the opportunity to witness such transformations on many occasions. It is also true that members of the weaker sex are affected most positively by the company of men and male attention, and in this sensewe treated Mademoiselle like a genuine queen.

Fandorin came to breakfast in morning tails and a white tie, clearly demonstrating that the liberties that he had been obliged to take the previous day had in no way diminished his respect for our guest. I appreciated his gesture. To tell the truth, the tenor of my own thoughts was similar, only, unlike Erast Petrovich, I did not have any clothes into which I could change and had to make do with shaving my exposed features properly.

Whilewewere drinking coffee – Iwas also at the table because I was not present as a butler but as a private individual – Erast Petrovich spoke about our business. The conversation was conducted in French.

‘I did not sleep very much last night, but I did do a lot of thinking. The reason for my unforgivable error seems clear to me now. I had not expected such audacity from Doctor Lind. In all his previous operations he has behaved with extreme caution. But evidently this time the prize was too great and Lind decided to occupy the most advantageous position possible. Being inside the Hermitage, he was able to observe all our preparations. And another source of information for him was Mr Carr, so artfully offered up to Simeon Alexandrovich. The drama of passions and jealousies was probably no more than a performance. The governor general confided in his English darling, who then told everything he had heard to the false Lord Banville.’

‘Perhaps the doctor’s audacity is explained by the fact that he has decided to retire forever once he has his colossal trophy?’ Emilie suggested. ‘How much money does a man need, after all?’

Fandorin twisted down the corner of his mouth.

‘I do not know what this man likes more, money or sheer villainy. He is no ordinary moneygrubber, he is a true poet of evil, a virtuoso engineer of cunning and cruelty. I am sure that the doctor derives pleasure from the erection of his brain-teasing constructions, and this time he has truly excelled himself by raising up a veritable Eiffel Tower. We have undercut this complicated structure, and it has collapsed, but its fragments appear to have caused substantial damage to the edifice of the Russian monarchy.’

I sighed heavily, thinking that the previous day’s catastrophe could indeed lead to quite unforeseeable consequences. If only there was no uprising as a result. And it was frightening to think what the йmigrй newspapers and the press of hostile nations would write.

‘I did not fully understand the allegory of the collapsed tower, but it seems to me, Erast, that you have precisely defined the most important feature of Lind’s character,’ Emilie said, nodding in agreement. ‘He is truly a poet of evil. And of hate. This man is full of hate, he literally exudes it. If only you had heard how he pronounces your name! I am certain that settling accounts with you means just as much to him as this ill-fated diamond. By the way, did I understand the meaning of the doctor’s curses correctly? You still have the stone?’

‘Would you like to take a look at it?’

Fandorin took a folded handkerchief out of his pocket and extracted the diamond from it. The bluish facets drew in the rays of the morning sun and glittered with bright rainbow sparks.

‘So much light,’ Mademoiselle said thoughtfully, screwing her eyes up slightly against the unbearable radiance. ‘I know what light that is. Over the centuries the stone has extinguished many lives, and they are all still shining there, inside it. I would wager that in the last few days the Orlov has begun to sparkle more brightly than ever, after absorbing new nourishment.’

She glanced at me, or rather at the top of my head, and said: ‘Forgive me, Athanas. Yesterday I was too concerned with myself and I did not even ask what happened to you. Where did you get that purple lump on your head?’

‘Ah yes, you know nothing about it!’ I exclaimed. ‘That is why you did not understand the Eiffel Tower.’

And I told her about the previous day’s carnage at the Khodynsk Field, concluding my narrative with the words: ‘Lind is not merely ruthless but also preternaturally cunning. Thousands of people were killed, but he survived unscathed.’

‘No, no, this is more than just cunning,’ said Mademoiselle, throwing up her hands, and the bedspread slipped off her shoulder.

The three of us would certainly have looked very strange to an outsider: Fandorin in a white tie, I in a torn jacket and Mademoiselle wrapped in a silk bedspread – we had no other clothing there for Emilie.

‘I think Doctor Lind is one of those people who likes to kill two hares with one stone,’ Mademoiselle continued. ‘When we were running through that appalling underground passage, he said something to his men in German after you shouted about the exchange: “I have four matters to deal with in Moscow: the diamond, Fandorin, Prince Simeon and that Judas, Carr.” From this I conclude, Erast, that your assumption about Lind play-acting jealousy is false. He was genuinely affronted by his lover’s betrayal. And as for yesterday’s catastrophe, most probably it was meant to serve a different purpose – to settle scores with the governor general of Moscow. If Lind had simply wanted to get away, he would have invented something less complicated and less risky. After all, he could have been trampled underfoot in the crush himself.’

‘You are a very intelligent woman, Mademoiselle,’ Erast Petrovich said in a serious voice. ‘And so you think that the life of our lover of dyed carnations is in danger?’

‘Undoubtedly. Lind is one of those people who never retreat or forgive. His failure will only further incite the hate that is seething and boiling inside him. You know, I formed the impression that those men attached some special, almost mystical significance to homosexuality. Lind’s cut-throats did not simply fear or respect their leader; it seemed to me that they were in love with him – if that word is appropriate here. Lind is like a sultan in a harem, only instead of odalisques he is surrounded by thieves and murderers. I think you were right about Mr Carr – for Lind he was something like a lapdog or a greyhound, an occasion for mixing work and pleasure. I am certain the doctor will not forgive him for being unfaithful.’

‘Then we have to save Carr.’ Fandorin put his crumpled napkin down on the table and stood up. ‘Emilie, we shall send you to the Hermitage, and you will warn the Englishman of the danger.’

‘Are you suggesting I should appear in the palace wrapped in this rag?’ Mademoiselle exclaimed indignantly. ‘Not for the world! I would rather go back to the cellar!’

Erast Petrovich rubbed his chin, perplexed.

‘Indeed. You are right. I had not thought of that. Ziukin, do you know anything about women’s dresses, hats, shoes and all the rest of it?’

‘Very little indeed,’ I admitted.

‘And I know even less. But there is nothing to be done. Let us give Emilie a chance to perform her morning toilette, while we make a visit to the shops on Myasnitskaya Street. We shall buy something there. Emilie, will you trust our taste?’

Mademoiselle pressed one hand to her heart.

‘My dear gentlemen, I trust you in everything.’

We stopped at the Myasnitsky Gate and hesitantly surveyed the frontages of the ready-made-clothing shops.

‘How do you like that one there?’ Fandorin asked, pointing to a gleaming shop window bearing a sign – THE LATEST PARIS FASHIONS.

‘I have heard Her Imperial Highness say that this season the fashion is for everything from London. And also let us not forget that Mademoiselle Declique does not have those things that a respectable lady cannot manage without.’

‘In what s-sense?’ Fandorin asked, staring at me dull-wittedly and I had to express my meaning more directly: ‘Underclothes, stockings, pantaloons.’

‘Yes, yes, indeed. I tell you what, Ziukin. I can see that you are a man well-informed about such matters. You give the orders.’

The first difficulties arose in the shoe shop. Looking at the piles of boxes, I suddenly realised that I had absolutely no idea what size we needed. But here Fandorin’s keen powers of observation proved most helpful. He showed the salesman his open palm and said: ‘That length plus one and a half inches. I think that will be just right.’

‘And what style would you like?’ the salesman asked, squirming obsequiously. ‘We have prunellas on a three-quarter heel – the very latest chic. Or perhaps you would like satin lace-ups, Turkish sateen slippers, Russian leather bottines from Kimry, chaussurettes from Albin Picquot?’

We looked at each other.

‘Give us the ones that are the latest chic,’ Fandorin decided boldly and paid nineteen roubles and fifty kopecks.

We moved on, carrying a lilac-coloured box. The sight of this elegant cardboard construction reminded me of another container that I had not seen since the previous day.

‘Where is the casket?’ I asked, suddenly anxious. ‘What if thieves should break in? You know Moscow is full of riff-raff.’

‘Do not be c-concerned, Ziukin. I have hidden the casket where even the detective department of the police will not find it,’ he reassured me.

We bought a dress and hat rather easily in the shop BEAU BRUMMEL. GOODS FROM LONDON. We were both rather taken by a dress of light straw-coloured barиge with gold thread and a cape. Fandorin paid out a hundred and thirty-five roubles for it and upon my soul, it was well worth the money. The hat of lace tulle (my choice) cost twenty-five roubles. Erast Petrovich considered the paper violets on the crown excessive, but in my opinion they matched Emilie’s eyes perfectly.

We had a hard time of it in the lady’s underwear shop. We were delayed here for a long time because we were unable to give a proper answer to a single question that the saleswoman asked. Fandorin looked embarrassed and I wished the earth would open up and swallow me, especially when the shameless girl started enquiring about the size of the bust. It was in this shop that I overheard a conversation that completely spoiled my mood, so that I took no further part in discussing the purchases and relied entirely on Erast Petrovich.

Two ladies were talking to each other – in low voices, but I could hear everything quite clearly.

‘. . . and the sovereign shed a tear and said: “This is a sign from above that I should not rule. I shall set aside the crown and go into a monastery, to spend the rest of my days praying for the souls of those who have been killed,”’ said one of the women, a plump and self-important individual but, judging by her appearance, not from the very highest society. ‘My Serge heard that with his own ears because yesterday he was His Majesty’s duty orderly.’

‘Such nobility of soul!’ exclaimed her companion, a somewhat younger and simpler lady, gazing respectfully at the plump woman. ‘But what about Simeon Alexandrovich? Is it true what they say, that he was the one who persuaded the tsar and tsarina to go to that ill-fated ball?’

I cautiously stole closer, pretending to be absorbed in studying some lacy bloomers with frills and ribbons.

‘Absolutely true,’ said the first woman, lowering her voice. ‘Serge heard His Highness say: “It’s nothing important. The hoi polloi have trampled each other in the rush to get hold of something for nothing. Stop playing the baby, Nicky, and get on with ruling.”’

The fat lady seemed unlikely to have enough imagination to invent something like that. How like Simeon Alexandrovich it was to repeat word for word the phrase that was spoken to Alexander the Blessed by the killer of his father!

‘Ah, Filippa Karlovna, but why did they have to go to the French ambassador’s ball on such an evening?’

Filippa Karlovna sighed dolefully. ‘What can I tell you Polinka? I can only repeat what Serge said: “When God wants to punish someone, He takes away their reason.” You see, Count Montebello had ordered a hundred thousand roses to be brought from France especially for the ball. If the ball had been postponed, the roses would have withered. And so Their Majesties came to the rout but as a token of mourning they did not dance. And now there are rumours among the common folk that the tsar and his German woman danced with delight at knowing they had killed so many Orthodox souls. It’s terrible, simply terrible!’

Oh Lord, I thought, what inexcusable frivolity! To set the whole of Russia against oneself for the sake of some roses! The Khodynsk Field tragedy could still have been explained by some unfortunate confluence of circumstances; an exemplary trial of the organisers of the revels could have been arranged – anything at all, as long as the authority of the supreme ruler was maintained. But now universal hatred would be directed not only against the governor general of Moscow, but also against the tsar and tsarina, and everybody would say roses are more important to them than people.

We walked back along the street, carrying numerous boxes and bundles. I do not know what Fandorin was thinking about, but he had an air of concentration – probably he was making plans for further action. With an effort I also forced myself to start thinking in practical terms: how could we find the fugitive Lord Banville and Mikhail Georgievich?

Suddenly I stopped dead in my tracks. ‘And Freyby?’ I exclaimed.

‘What about Freyby?’

‘We have forgotten all about him, but he is one of Lind’s men too, that is obvious! And the doctor left him in the Hermitage for a good reason – to act as his spy! Why, of course!’ I groaned, appalled at the belatedness of my realisation. ‘Freyby behaved strangely from the beginning. On the very first day he said that there must be a spy in the house. He deliberately led us astray so that suspicion would not fall on him! And there is something else. I completely forgot to tell you. When Lieutenant Endlung and I set out to follow Banville and Carr, Freyby said to me: “Look more carefully today.” I was struck by it at the time – as if he knew what I was going out to do!’

‘“Look more carefully today”? That is what he said?’ Fandorin asked in surprise.

‘Yes, with the help of his dictionary.’

We were obliged to interrupt our conversation because we were already approaching the house.

Mademoiselle greeted us still wearing the same bedspread, but with her hair neatly brushed and smelling fragrant.

‘Oh, presents!’ she exclaimed, surveying our baggage with delight. ‘Quick, quick!’

And she set about untying the ribbons and string right there in the hallway.

‘Mon Dieu, qu’est-ce que c’est?’¹ Emilie muttered as she extracted the pantaloons chosen by Erast Petrovich from their pink packaging. ‘Quelle horreur!Pour qui me prenez vous?’²

Fandorin was a pitiful sight. His face fell completely when Mademoiselle declared that the pink corset with the lilac lacing was absolutely vulgar, only coquettes wore things like that and it exceeded her modest proportions by at least three sizes.

I was indignant. This man could not be trusted to do anything! I had only been distracted for a minute, and he had spoiled everything. The silk stockings were the only purchase he had made that received approval.

But there was a shock in store for me too. When she took the wonderful hat with violets that I liked so much out of its box, Mademoiselle first raised her eyebrows in surprise and then laughed. She ran across to the mirror and turned her head this way and that.

‘Un vrai йpouvanteil!’ ³ was her pitiless judgement.

The remarkable dress of barиge and the silk shoes, the latest Parisian chic, were judged no less harshly. ‘I see, gentlemen, that in the most important things of all you are not to be trusted,’ Emilie concluded with a sigh. ‘But at least I can get to the Hermitage, and then change my clothes.’

Before he put Mademoiselle in the cab, Erast Petrovich gave her his final instructions.

‘Tell them that Ziukin and I rescued you from captivity and we are continuing our search for Lind. Do not give away our address. You do not know that we have the Orlov and the other jewels. Rest and recover your strength. And one other thing.’ He whispered although the coachman could not possibly have understood French: ‘As far as we can tell, Freyby is one of Lind’s men. Keep an eye on him and take special care. But not a word about this to Karnovich, or the colonel might spoil everything in his eagerness. Definitely do tell him about Banville. Let the police join in the search, it will make Lind’s life more difficult. Well that is all. Goodbye. If something urgent comes up, telephone. You know the number.’

He shook her hand. Ah, gloves, I thought. We had completely forgotten to buy her gloves!

‘Goodbye, my friends,’ Emilie said, fluttering her long eyelashes and switching her gaze from Fandorin to me. ‘I am eternally in your debt. You freed me from that dreadful cellar, where I was choking to death on the smell of rotten potatoes.’ Her grey eyes glinted mischievously. ‘It was very romantic, just like a novel about chivalrous knights. Although I have never heard of knights rescuing a beautiful lady from an enchanted castle with a yard keeper’s crowbar before.’

She waved to us in farewell and the carriage set off towards the Myasnitsky Gate.

We gazed after her for a long time, until the cab disappeared round a bend. I glanced sideways at Fandorin. He looked thoughtful, even rather bewildered. Could this lady’s man possibly have developed special feelings for Emilie?

‘What next?’ I asked in an emphatically cool voice.

Fandorin’s face suddenly turned gloomy and determined, but he did not answer me straight away, only after a very lengthy pause indeed.

‘Right, Ziukin, the women and the wagons are in a safe place. And we are b-back on the warpath. Doctor Lind is strolling around at liberty, and that means our mission has not been completed.’

‘The most important thing is to save His Highness,’ I reminded him. ‘I hope that the desire for vengeance will not lead you to disregard Mikhail Georgievich’s fate.’

He was embarrassed, it was quite obvious. That meant my reminder had been timely.

‘Yes, yes, of course. But in any case we first need to reach our irrepressible doctor. How are we going to do it?’

‘Through Freyby?’ I said with a shrug. ‘The butler must have some way to contact Lind.’

‘I keep thinking about Mr Freyby,’ said Erast Petrovich, climbing the steps and opening the door. ‘Something there doesn’t add up. If he really is Lind’s man, then why would he warn us about a spy? And why would he tell you to keep a sharp eye on his master? There’s something wrong here. Can you recall the exact words that he spoke?’

‘I remember them very well. “Vy . . . smotret’ . . . luchshe . . . sevodnya.” He fished every word out of his dictionary.’

‘Hmm. And what was it in English? “You . . . watch out today”?’

‘No, that wasn’t it.’ I wrinkled up my forehead and tried to delve into my memory. ‘It was something that began with “b”.’

‘With “b”? Better?’

‘Yes, that was it!’

‘Well then, let us try to reconstitute the English phrase.Vy is “you”,smotret’ is “see” or “look”, then comes “better”, and sevodnya is “today”. “You see better today” makes no sense. So it must be “You look better today.”’

‘Yes, that’s right! The very words!’ I exclaimed in delight.

Erast Petrovich shrugged.

‘Then I’m afraid that I must disappoint you, Ziukin. That is by no means a recommendation to keep a closer eye on Lind, but an expression that means, “You are looking better today.”’

‘Is that all?’ I asked, disappointed.

‘I’m afraid so. You and Mr Freyby have fallen victim to literal translation.’

Fandorin seemed proud of his little victory. Naturally. The previous day’s embarrassment over Banville had left his glorious reputation as an analytical genius badly tarnished.

‘You should never place too much confidence in dictionaries. But he gave you very good advice about the spy. I should have thought about that from the very beginning. There was definitely someone in the Hermitage spying for Lind. The doctor knew everything: the times of arrivals, the daily routine, even where you went for a walk and who was in the company. Banville, Carr and Freyby arrived too late. They simply could not have found out all those things in time.’

‘Then who is the spy?’

‘Let us think.’ Erast Petrovich sat down on a couch in the drawing room and crossed one leg over the other. ‘Wait . . . Why, of course!’ He slapped himself on the knee. ‘Did you hear the Postman call out “Ziukin” yesterday at the Khodynka?’

‘Of course I did.’

‘But how did he know that you were Ziukin? Were you acquainted with him?’

‘No, but he saw me at the post office, and naturally he remembered me.’

‘Who did he see at the post office’ asked Erast Petrovich, jumping to his feet. ‘An official of the Ministry of Agriculture and State Lands. The Postman was supposed to think you were Fandorin in disguise, but somehow or other he realised who you were, although he had never seen you before. Just what is the source of such incredible astuteness?’

‘Well, obviously Lind explained it to him later,’ I suggested.

‘Very well, that is also possible. But how did the doctor know that you were involved in the operation? The letter in which I arranged the meeting was written in my name, without any mention of you. Did you tell anyone that you were now assisting me in this risky business?’

I hesitated for a moment, and then decided there was no point in being secretive in such important matters.

‘When we were in the Hermitage I told two people about our plans. But when I explain how it happened, you will understand I had no other—’

‘Who?’ Erast Petrovich asked quickly. ‘The names!’

‘Her Highness—’

‘You saw Xenia?’ he interrupted excitedly. ‘What did she say?’

I replied coolly: ‘Nothing. She hid me, and that was enough.’

‘And who was the other person?’ Fandorin asked with a sigh.

‘My Moscow assistant, Somov. He proved to be an honourable man. Not only did he not give me away, he even promised to help . . .’

I related the content of my conversation with Somov, trying to recall everything in precise detail.

‘Well then, Somov is our spy,’ Erast Petrovich said with a shrug. ‘That is as clear as day. He was based at the Hermitage before you arrived from St Petersburg. He had a thorough knowledge of the house and the disposition of the rooms. He must have made a careful study of the park and identified the spot for the ambush. It was easy to guess that after an exhausting journey the child would be taken out for a walk. And apart from Somov no one could have informed Lind that you were working for me.’

I said nothing. There were no objections I could raise against what Fandorin had said, but I had already formed an opinion of Somov that I was reluctant to abandon.

‘I see you are doubtful. Very well, let us make certain. You told me that Somov had moved into your room? That means he has a telephone there. Telephone him. Say we are in a desperate situation and need his help.’

‘And then what?’

‘And then g-give the phone to me.’

I told the lady operator the number, Erast Petrovich pressed the second earpiece to his ear and we waited. For a very long time there was nothing but the ringing tone, and I had already decided that Kornei Selifanovich must be busy dealing with household matters in some distant corner of the palace, but after about three minutes there was a click and Somov’s breathless voice.

‘Hermitage. What can I do for you?’

‘Listen and do not say a word,’ I said. ‘Do you recognise me?’

‘Yes,’ he replied after a pause.

‘Are you still prepared to help us?’

‘Yes.’ This time there was not the slightest delay.

‘We have to meet.’

‘I . . . I can’t just now. You can’t imagine what’s going on here. Mr Carr has been found dead! Just now! I walked in and he was lying in his room with a knife stuck in his chest. A kitchen knife, for filleting white fish. The police have turned the entire house upside down and they’re scouring the garden!’

‘Ask how long ago he was killed,’ Erast Petrovich whispered.

‘How long ago was he killed?’ I asked.

‘What? How should I know? Wait, I do know! I heard the gentlemen from the court police say that the body was still very warm.’

‘That Lind is no man, he’s a devil!’ I whispered with my hand over the receiver. ‘He carries on settling scores, no matter what!’

‘Ask if Emilie has got back.’

‘Tell me, Kornei Selifanovich, has Mademoiselle Declique shown up yet?’

‘Mademoiselle? Why, has she been found?’ Somov’s voice trembled. ‘Do you know something about her?’

There had to be some reason why he was so agitated, there had to be. I immediately recalled how he had pestered Emilie with his French lessons. Perhaps Fandorin was not so far wrong in suspecting him!

‘Surely Banville would not have dared to go back into the Hermitage?’ I asked Erast Petrovich. ‘That’s simply incredible!’

‘Of course it’s incredible,’ he remarked coolly. ‘Carr was stabbed by Somov. He certainly knows all about kitchen knives.’

‘I can’t hear anything!’ said the voice in the receiver. ‘Afanasii Stepanovich, where are you? How can I find you?’

Fandorin took the mouthpiece from me.

‘This is Fandorin here. Hello, Somov. I would like to see you. If you value the life of His Highness, leave the house immediately by the back entrance, walk through the park and in thirty minutes, no later, be at the Donskoi Cemetery, by the wall opposite the entrance. Delay may be fatal.’

And he hung up, without waiting for a reply.

‘Why such a rush?’ I asked.

‘I do not want him to meet Emilie, who will reach the Hermitage at any moment now. We don’t want Somov to get the idea of eliminating a dangerous witness. You heard how agitated he was. If the audacity with which Somov killed Carr is anything to go by, your estimable assistant was planning to make a run for it in any case.’

I shook my head, far from convinced that it was Somov who had killed Carr.

‘Right, Afanasii Stepanovich,’ said Fandorin, putting his little revolver in his pocket. Then he took another pistol of rather more impressive proportions out of his travelling bag and stuck it into his belt. ‘This is where our p-paths part. I shall meet Somov and have a good talk with him.’

‘What does “a good talk” mean?’

‘I shall tell him that he has been discovered and offer him a choice: to serve hard labour for life or to help catch Lind.’

‘And what if you are mistaken, and he is not guilty of anything?’

‘I shall understand that from the way he behaves. But Somov is the spy, I am certain of it.’

I followed Erast Petrovich round the room, observing his preparations. Everything was happening too fast. I had no time to gather my thoughts.

‘But why do we have to separate?’

‘Because if Somov is Lind’s man, it is highly likely that at this very moment he is telephoning his boss, and the welcome awaiting me at the cemetery will be somewhat hotter than I was counting on. Although of course they have no time at all to prepare. But it’s a convenient spot, isolated.’

‘All the more reason why I must go with you!’

‘No, Ziukin. You must stay here and guard this.’

Erast Petrovich put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the diamond, wrapped in his handkerchief. I held out my hand reverently and felt the strange warmth radiating from the sacred stone.

Fandorin swung round on his heels and went out into the corridor. I stayed close behind. In the kitchen doorway Erast Petrovich squatted down on his haunches, hooked up one of the floorboards, and a moment later he was holding the familiar casket.

‘There you are, Ziukin, now I d-do not owe the House of Romanov anything. You can be regarded as a plenipotentiary representative of the royal family, surely?’ He smiled briefly. ‘The important thing is, never leave the telephone. I shall definitely call you.’

‘Where from?’

‘I do not know yet. From some hotel, restaurant or post office.’

In the doorway Fandorin turned and looked back at me. His glance seemed strange, as if there was something he could not bring himself to tell me, or he was hesitating over what to do next. I did not like this at all; in fact, to tell the truth, I was frightened that he might have changed his mind and intended to take the jewels with him.

I took a step back, tightening my grip on the casket, and said: ‘You’ll be late. It’s a long way. What if Somov doesn’t wait for you?’

‘He will,’ Fandorin replied absent-mindedly, clearly thinking about something else. Could that possibly be pity in his eyes? ‘Listen, Afanasii Stepanovich . . .’

‘What?’ I asked cautiously, sensing that he was about to tell me something very important.

‘No . . . never mind. Wait for my call.’

He turned and left.

What an abominable way to behave!

I made myself as comfortable as possible beside the telephone.

Judging that Fandorin could not call me during the next hour in any case, I took some money (Erast Petrovich had left an entire wad of banknotes on the table), went to Myasnitskaya Street and bought fresh cod, some remarkable Moscow ham and newspapers. I took the casket with me, pressing it close to me with my elbow and keeping a keen lookout to spot any thieves who might be loitering nearby. The Orlov was hanging round my neck, in a bag specially made out of a woollen sock.

Weary of all the shocks it had endured, my heart had also been tempered and toughened by them. Only a few days earlier I would scarcely have been able to sit there so calmly, drinking tea, eating and looking through the newspapers. As the common folk would say, a few of my corners had been knocked off.

The Moscow newspapers did not exactly pass over the Khodynsk Field disaster in silence – how could they, when the entire city was filled with wailing and weeping? But they wrote evasively, laying the greatest emphasis on the charitable actions of members of the imperial family. A certain fitting delicacy and concern for the authority of the dynasty could be discerned in that.

For example, the Moscow Gazette gave a highly detailed description of a visit to the Staro-Ekaterinskaya Hospital by the dowager empress, during which Her Majesty gave each of the victims a bottle of Madeira. The emperor and empress had given instructions for the funerals to be paid for by the treasury and families who had lost their breadwinner were awarded compensation. This was indeed a most noble gesture, but it seemed to me that the newspaper was excessively admiring of Their Majesties’ generosity, making no comment on the reason for the royal benefaction. The people of Moscow were unlikely to find the tone of the article to their taste. And I was totally dismayed by the Moscow Illustrated Newspaper, which could think of nothing better than to reproduce the artistically designed menu for the forthcoming supper for three thousand in the Faceted Palace:

LUCULLAN BOUILLON

ASSORTED PIES

COLD HAZEL GROUSE Б LA SUVOROV

CHICKENS ROASTED ON THE SPIT

SALAD

WHOLE ASPARAGUS

ICE CREAM

DESSERT

That is to say, I could see perfectly well that, owing to the sad events, the menu that had been drawn up was modest in the extreme, with no extravagances at all. Only a single salad? No sturgeon, no stuffed pheasants or even black caviar! A truly spartan meal. The highly placed individuals who had been invited to the supper would appreciate the significance of this. But why print such a thing in a newspaper that had many readers for whom ‘dog’s delight’ sausage was a treat?

On sober consideration, what I detected in all of this was not concern for the prestige of the authorities but rather the diametrical opposite. Obviously, Simeon Alexandrovich and the high police master had forbidden the newspapers to write openly about what had happened, and so the editors were doing their best, each in his own way, to inflame the resentment of the common people.

Feeling very upset, I put the newspapers aside and gazed out of the window. This occupation, which appears so pointless at first glance, is excellent for calming agitated nerves, especially on a clear May evening, when the shadows are so soft and golden, the trees are still growing accustomed to their newly acquired foliage and the sky is clear and serene.

I spent a rather long time in quiet contemplation free of all thoughts. And when the outlines of the houses were completely blurred and then effaced by the twilight, and the street lamps came on, the telephone rang.

‘Listen carefully and d-do not interrupt,’ I heard Fandorin’s voice say. ‘Do you know the Vorobyovsky Hills?’

‘Yes, they’re not far from—’

‘There’s a decorative p-park there. We saw it from the boat, remember? Do you remember the bridge suspended on cables over the ravine? I told you I had seen one almost exactly like it in the Himalayas?’

‘Yes, I remember, but why are you telling me all this?’

‘Be there tomorrow morning. At six. Bring the stone and the casket.’

‘Why? What has ha—’

‘Yes, and one more thing,’ he said, interrupting me unceremoniously. ‘Do not be surprised as I shall be dressed as a monk. I might well be late, but you, Ziukin, be there on time. Do you understand all that?’

‘Yes, that is no. I don’t understand a single—’

I heard the disconnect signal and slammed the receiver down in extreme indignation. How dare he talk to me in that fashion? He had not explained anything; he had not told me anything! How had his meeting with Somov gone? Where was Fandorin now? Why was he not coming back here? And, most importantly, why did I have to take the jewels to such a strange place?

I suddenly recalled the strange expression with which he had looked at me when we parted. What was it he had wanted to tell me as he left, but had not been able to bring himself to say?

He had said: ‘This is where our paths part.’ What if our paths had parted not only in the literal but also the figurative sense? Oh Lord, and I had no one to ask for advice!

I sat there, looking at the silent telephone and thinking intently.

Karnovich? Out of the question.

Lasovsky? I could assume that he had been removed from his post, and even if he had not been removed . . .

Endlung? Of course. He was a fine chap. But he would be no help in a such a puzzling business.

Emilie! She was the one who could help me.

I had to telephone the Hermitage, I realised, and ask for Mademoiselle Declique in a disguised voice, preferably a female one . . . And at that very moment the telephone came to life and began ringing desperately. God be praised! So Fandorin was not quite such an ignorant fellow as I had supposed. We had simply been cut off.

I deliberately spoke first, so that he would not have a chance to shock me with some new trick in his usual manner.

‘Before I do as you demand, be so good as to explain,’ I said hurriedly, ‘what happened with Somov? And why disguise yourself as a monk? Could you not find any other costume? This is sacrilege!’

‘Mon Dieu, what are you saying, Athanas?’ Mademoiselle’s voice said and I choked, but only for a moment.

It was simply wonderful that she had phoned me herself!

‘Who were you talking to?’ Emilie asked, changing into French.

‘Fandorin,’ I mumbled.

‘What monk? What has Somov got to do with anything? I’m ringing from his room, your old room, that is. Somov has gone missing; no one knows where he is. But that is not important. Carr has been killed!’

‘Yes, yes, I know.’

‘You know? How?’ She sounded amazed. ‘All the grand dukes are here, and Colonel Karnovich. He has been interrogating Freyby for several hours. The poor colonel has completely lost his head. He took almost no notice of my arrival – all he said to me was: “You can tell me later; it’s not important just now.” I try to tell him about Lord Banville, but he does not believe me! He tells me I am mentally disturbed because of all the shocks. Can you believe it? He imagines that Freyby is Doctor Lind! I want to ask you and Erast for advice. Perhaps I should try once again? Explain to Karnovich that Freyby is only a minor figure? Or perhaps tell him that you have found the empress’s stolen jewels? Then all these gentlemen will calm down and start listening to me. What should I do?’

‘Emilie, I am in need of advice myself,’ I confessed. ‘Never mind about Mr Freyby. I don’t think he is guilty of anything, but let Karnovich carry on questioning him. At least that will keep him busy. Don’t tell anyone about the jewels. I have a different idea . . .’

I hesitated, because the idea had only just occurred to me and it had not been properly formulated yet. I picked the telephone book up off the table and opened it at the letter ‘p’. Was the Vorobyovsky Park listed?

As I leafed through the pages, I said what I would not have been able to say if Emilie had been standing there in front of me: ‘I am so glad to hear your voice. I was feeling completely lost and alone, but now I feel much better. I hope I am not speaking too boldly?’

‘Good Lord, Athanas, sometimes your formality makes you quite insufferable!’ she exclaimed. ‘Are you never going to say the words that I long to hear? Simply and clearly, with no quibbling or evasion?’

I guessed immediately which words she wanted to hear, and my throat went dry.

‘I don’t entirely understand,’ I croaked, nonplussed by her directness. ‘I think I have already said far more than might be considered acceptable, bearing in mind—’

‘There you go humming and hawing again,’ Mademoiselle interrupted me. ‘All right, damn you. I’ll shake your declaration out of you when we meet. But in the meantime tell me your idea. Only be quick. Someone could come in at any moment.’

I told her about Fandorin’s strange demands.

Emilie listened without saying a word.

‘I intend to act differently,’ I said. ‘Let us meet and I shall give you the casket and the Orlov. At dawn I shall go to the meeting place and demand an explanation from Fandorin. If his answers satisfy me and I realise that he really does need the stone for this business, I shall telephone you from the office in the Vorobyovsky Park. There is an apparatus there, I have just checked. Be ready. From the Hermitage to the Vorobyovsky Park is a fifteen-minute ride in a cab. Fandorin will not lose much time as a result of these precautions.’

I heard her breathing in the earpiece, and that quiet music warmed my heart.

‘No,’ Emilie said after a long pause. ‘I do not like your idea at all, Athanas. Firstly, I am not sure that I will be able to leave the Hermitage unnoticed today. Secondly, I am afraid that we will cause problems for Erast. I trust him. And you should trust him too. He is a truly noble man. More than that, he is an exceptional man. I have never met anyone else like him in my life. If you want the little prince to be rescued, go to the meeting with Erast and do exactly as he says.’

Her verdict shocked me, and in the most unpleasant way. She had even spoken like Fandorin: ‘Firstly . . . Secondly . . .’ How clever this man was at making people adore him!

I asked in a trembling voice: ‘You trust him that far?’

‘Yes. Implicitly,’ she snapped, and suddenly laughed. ‘Naturally, apart from dresses and corsets.’

What an incredible woman – joking at such a moment! But she was immediately serious again.

‘I implore you, Athanas, do everything that he says.’ She hesitated. ‘And also . . . be careful. For my sake.’

‘For your sake?’ I asked stupidly, which of course I should not have done, because no self-respecting lady could possibly have expressed herself more clearly.

But Mademoiselle repeated: ‘Yes, for my sake. If anything happens to Mr Fandorin, even though he is a genuine hero and an exceptional man, I can survive.’ She hesitated again. ‘But if anything happens to you, I am afraid . . .’

She did not finish the sentence, and there was no need for her to.

Totally and completely unsettled, I babbled in a pathetic voice: ‘Thank you, Mademoiselle Declique. I shall make sure to contact you tomorrow morning.’

‘Thank you, Mademoiselle Declique. I shall make sure to contact you tomorrow morning.’

Then I quickly hung up.

Oh Lord, had I imagined it? And had I understood the meaning of her words correctly?

Need I say that I did not sleep a wink all night long until the dawn?

¹My God, what is it?

²How horrible! Who do you take me for?

³A real scarecrow!

20 May

In accordance with my invariable habit, I reached the meeting place earlier than the appointed time.

At twenty minutes to six I arrived in a cab at the main avenue of the Vorobyovsky Park, which was entirely deserted at that early hour. As I walked along a sandy path, I glanced absentmindedly to the left, where the city lay shrouded in blue-grey shadows, and screwed my eyes up against the bright sunlight. The view was very beautiful, and the morning freshness of the air set my head spinning, but my state of mind was not conducive to poetic ecstasy. My heart alternately stood still and pounded furiously. I pressed the casket firmly against myself with my right hand, and beneath my undershirt the two-hundred-carat diamond swayed very slightly against my chest. A strange thought came to me: how much was I, Afanasii Ziukin, worth just at that moment? To the Romanov dynasty I was worth a great deal, immeasurably more than Ziukin without the casket and the Orlov dangling in a woollen sock on a ribbon. But to myself I was worth exactly as much as I had been a week or a year earlier. And for Emilie too my value had probably not changed a jot because of all these diamonds, rubies and sapphires.

This realisation lent me strength. I no longer felt like a pitiful unworthy vessel chosen by the mere whim of fate as a temporary shrine for priceless treasures, but the defender and saviour of the dynasty.

As I approached the bushes behind which the hanging bridge should be located, I glanced at my watch again. A quarter to six.

A few more steps, and the ravine came into sight, the dew on its steep grassy slopes glinting with a cold metallic gleam. From down below came the murmur of a stream, invisible under the light swirling mist. But my glance only slid over the fissure in passing and immediately turned to the narrow bridge. It turned out that Fandorin had arrived even earlier and was waiting for me.

With a wave of his hand he moved quickly towards me, striding confidently along the gently swaying ribbon of wood. Neither the baggy monk’s habit nor the black hood with the mantle falling to his shoulders could conceal the grace of his erect figure. We were separated by a distance of no more than twenty paces. The sun was shining from behind his back, and this suddenly made it look as if the black silhouette with its glowing halo was descending towards me directly from the heavens along a slim ray of gold.

Shielding my eyes with one hand, I took hold of the cable that served as a handrail with the other and stepped onto the bridge, which swayed elastically beneath my feet.

After that everything happened very quickly. So quickly that I did not even have the time to take another step.

On the opposite side of the ravine a slim black figure dashed towards the bridge. I saw that one of its hands was longer than the other and glinted brightly in the sun. The barrel of a revolver!

‘Look out!’ I shouted, and Fandorin swung round with lightning speed, poking a hand clutching a small revolver out of the sleeve of his habit.

Erast Petrovich swayed, evidently blinded by the rays of the sun, but fired at the same moment. Following an interval so very brief that it was almost impossible to hear, Lind’s weapon also roared.

They both hit the target.

The slim figure on the far side of the ravine tumbled over onto its back, but Fandorin was also thrown back and to one side. He clutched the cable with one hand and for a brief moment stayed on his feet – I caught a glimpse of a white face bisected by a thin strip of moustache before it disappeared behind the crкpe curtain of the mantle. Then Erast Petrovich swayed, tumbled over the cable and plunged down.

The bridge jerked to the left and the right as if it was drunk, and I was obliged to clutch the cable with both hands. The casket slipped out from under my elbow, struck a plank, then a rock and split apart, and Her Majesty’s jewels fell into the grass, shooting out a glimmering spray of coloured light.

The double echo of the shots rumbled along the ravine and then dissolved. It became very quiet again. There were birds singing and somewhere in the distance a factory whistle hooted to announce the start of a shift. Then I heard a rapid regular knocking, like the rattling of a tea glass in its metal holder on a train as it hurtles along at top speed.

It took me some time to realise that it was my teeth chattering.

The body on the far side of the ravine lay motionless.

The other, its form widened by the spreadeagled black habit, lay below me, at the very edge of the stream. The mist that had lined the bottom of the ravine only a minute earlier was thinner now, and I could see that one of the body’s hands was dangling lifelessly into the water. There could be no hope that Fandorin was alive after such a fall – the crunch of the impact with the ground had been far too fearsome.

I had not liked this man. Perhaps I had even hated him. At least I had wanted him to disappear from our lives once and for all. But I had not wished his death.

His trade was risk – he constantly toyed with danger – but somehow I had not thought that he could be killed. He had seemed immortal to me.

I do know how long I stood there, clutching the cable and looking down. Perhaps for a moment, perhaps for an hour.

I was brought back to my senses by a spot of sunlight that leapt out of the grass straight into my eye. I started, gazed in incomprehension at the source of the light and saw the yellow star-shaped diamonds of the tiara. I stepped off the bridge onto the ground in order to gather up the scattered treasures but then did not do it. They were safe enough where they were.

Whatever he may have been like, Fandorin had not deserved this, to be left lying like carrion on the wet gravel. I crossed myself and began making my way down. I slipped twice but did not fall.

I stood over the dead man not knowing what to do. Suddenly, making up my mind, I leaned down, took hold of his shoulders and began to turn him over onto his back. I do not know why. It was simply unbearable to see how he, always so elegant and so full of life, lay there with his broken body arched grotesquely while the rapid water stirred his lifeless hand.

Fandorin proved a lot lighter than I had expected and I turned him over with no great difficulty. I hesitated briefly, then threw the bundled-up mantle back off the face and . . .

No, here I must break off. Because I do not know how to describe my feelings at that moment, when I saw the black moustache pasted onto the face and the trickle of scarlet blood flowing from the dead Mademoiselle Declique’s mouth. Probably I did not feel anything at all. Obviously I must have suffered a kind of paralysie йmotionelle¹– I do not know how to say it in Russian. I did not feel anything, I did not understand anything; for some reason I simply kept trying to wipe the blood off Emilie’s pale lips, but the blood kept flowing and it was impossible to stop.

‘Is she dead?’ someone shouted down to me.

Not surprised at all, I slowly raised my head.

Fandorin was making his way down the opposite slope of the ravine, clutching his shoulder.

His face seemed unnaturally white to me, and there were drops of red seeping between his fingers.

Fandorin spoke and I listened. I was feeling rather unsteady, and because of that for most of the time I looked down at the ground, to make sure that it did not completely disappear from under my feet.

‘I guessed yesterday morning, as we were seeing her off to the Hermitage. Do you remember that she joked about knights with a yard keeper’s crowbar? That was careless. How could a prisoner who was chained in the cellar see you and me breaking in the door with the yard keeper’s crowbar? She was unlikely even to have heard the noise. Only someone who was peeping from behind a curtain could have observed what we were doing.’

Erast Petrovich grimaced as he bathed his wounded shoulder with water from the stream.

‘Can’t tell if the bone was hit . . . I don’t think so. At least it was small calibre. But such accuracy! Against the sun, without aiming! An incredible woman . . . And so, after her strange words about the crowbar, the scales fell from my eyes, so to speak. I wondered exactly why the bandits had kept Emilie in her negligee? After all, sexual harassment by this band of misogynists was out of the question; indeed, from what she said they must have found the very sight of the female body repulsive. And now recall the items of men’s clothing scattered about in the house. It’s all very simple, Afanasii Stepanovich. You and I caught Lind by surprise and, instead of running, he (if you don’t mind, I shall speak about the doctor as a male, as I am accustomed to doing) made a bold move. He threw off his male clothing, hastily pulled on a woman’s shift from Mademoiselle Declique’s wardrobe, went down into the cellar and chained himself to the wall. Lind had very little time. He was not even able to hide the casket.’

Slowly and cautiously, an inch at a time, I transferred my glance to the recumbent body. I wanted to take another look at the lifeless face, but I did not get that far – my eye was caught by a dark bruise showing from under the open collar of the habit. It was an old bruise, one I had seen in the apartment on Arkhangelsky Lane. And then the dense shroud of fog enveloping my brain suddenly quivered and thinned.

‘But what about the bruises and contusions?’ I shouted. ‘She didn’t beat herself! No. Everything you say is lies! There has been a terrible mistake!’

Fandorin grabbed my elbow with a vice-like hand and shook me.

‘Calm down. The bruises and contusions were from Khodynsk Field. He was seriously battered there as well. After all, he was caught in just as bad a crush as we were.’

Yes. Yes. Fandorin was right. The shroud of fog enveloped me once again in its protective mantle, and I was able to carry on listening.

‘I have had enough time to reconstruct the entire plan of Lind’s Moscow operation.’ Erast Petrovich ripped a handkerchief apart with his teeth, bound up his wound crudely and wiped large beads of sweat off his forehead. ‘The doctor made his preparations unhurriedly, well in advance. After all, everyone already knew when the coronation would be last year. The idea was brilliant – to blackmail the entire imperial house. Lind calculated that fear of a worldwide scandal would drive the Romanovs to make any sacrifice. The doctor chose an excellent position for managing his operation – inside the very family against whom he intended to strike. Who would ever suspect the excellent governess of such an outrage? With his extensive connections, it was not hard for Lind to forge references. He gathered together an entire t-team. In addition to his usual helpers, he engaged the Warsaw bandits and they put him in touch with the Khitrovka gang. Oh, this man was a truly remarkable strategist!’

Fandorin looked thoughtfully at the woman lying at his feet. ‘It is strange that I cannot say “she” and “she was” about Lind . . .’

I finally managed to force myself to look at Emilie’s dead face. It was calm and mysterious, and a bloated black fly had settled on the tip of her snub nose. I squatted down and drove the vile insect away.

‘But, after all, the most important secret of the doctor’s power was precisely femininity. It was a very strange gang, Ziukin, a gang of extortionists and murderers ruled by love. All of Lind’s men were in love with him – with her, each in his own way. “Mademoiselle Declique’s” true genius was that this woman was able to find the key to any man’s heart, even a heart absolutely unequipped for love.’

I sensed his gaze on me, but I did not look up. There were already two flies circling above Emilie’s face; they had to be driven away.

‘Do you know what Somov told me b-before he died, Ziukin?’

‘Is he dead too?’ I asked indifferently.

Just at that moment I noticed an entire colony of ants climbing up Emilie’s sleeve, so I had plenty to keep me busy.

‘Yes, I checked him very simply. I turned my back to him. And of course he immediately attempted to take advantage of my apparent g-gullibility. There was a short struggle, which ended with your assistant impaling himself on his own knife. Even as he wheezed his last, he was still struggling to reach for my throat. I am not easily frightened but by God the sight of such a frenzy sent cold shivers running down my spine. I shouted at him: “What, what did you all find in her?” And do you know what answer he gave me, Ziukin? “Love.” That was the final word he spoke. Oh, she knew how to inspire love. I believe you too felt the influence of Doctor Lind’s charms, did you not? I’m afraid that you were too scrupulous altogether. As far as I can tell, Somov fared better than you did. I found this on him.’

He took a small silk bag out of his pocket and extracted a lock of chestnut hair from it. I recognised the hair immediately as Emilie’s. So that was the kind of French lessons they had. But there was no time for me to feel upset. The cursed flies had performed an outflanking manoeuvre and I caught one, the most persistent, on Mademoiselle’s ear.

‘Now it is clear why Doctor Lind had no women friends and was regarded as a m-misogynist. Homosexuality has nothing to do with it. Emilie cunningly led us astray by laying a false trail. We must assume that Lord Banville left the empire long ago, after making the poor boy Glinsky pay for the loss of his lover. Ah the exquisite Mr Carr, the innocuous fancier of blue carnations and green forget-me-nots! He was killed to make us even more sure that Lind was Lord Banville. While you and I played the idiot and chose pantaloons and stockings for the doctor, Mademoiselle must have searched the apartment, failed to find the casket or the Orlov and decided to make another move in her complicated game by telephoning Somov at the Hermitage and ordering him to do away with Carr. The operation was entering its final stage. Lind had to get back the jewels and take possession of the diamond.’

‘No!’ I exclaimed, overcome by a sudden horror. ‘No, there’s something wrong here! You are mistaken after all!’

He gaped at me in amazement, and I, choking on my sobs, told him about my last telephone conversation with Emilie.

‘If . . . if she was Doctor Lind, then why did she refuse? I . . . myself offered to give her the casket and the diamond! She would not take them! She said she trusted you and I must not get in your way.’

But this did not unsettle Fandorin at all. ‘Naturally,’ he said, nodding. ‘The loot on its own was not enough for the doctor. He – dammit, I mean she – wanted my head as well. Once she had found out the time and place of the meeting from you, she had the opportunity to conclude her Moscow operation at a single stroke. In a most triumphant manner, redressing all the failures and settling all accounts in full.’

Erast Petrovich hesitated. He looked as if he was feeling guilty and intended to beg my pardon.

I was not mistaken – he did indeed start to apologise: ‘Afanasii Stepanovich, I have treated you cruelly. I used you without explaining anything to you or taking you into my confidence. But I could not tell you the truth. You were captivated by Emilie and would never have believed me. Yesterday evening I deliberately spoke abruptly to you on the telephone and did not g-give you any information. I needed to provoke your s-suspicion. I knew that, assailed by doubts, you would turn for advice to the only person you trusted, Mademoiselle Declique. And you would tell her everything. I also chose the monk’s clothes deliberately. Lind, with his – O Lord, with her – uncanny quick-wittedness, was bound to realise what a convenient costume it would be for her.

‘The hood, the black mantle and the habit make it possible to mask both the figure and the face. I told Lind the plan of action myself, through you. Mademoiselle was well aware of your habit of arriving everywhere ahead of time. She reached the bridge at twenty minutes past five and waited. I had warned you that I might be late, and so she had no doubt that you would be the first to arrive. She would have time to take the jewels from you and prepare to meet me. But I took up a position in the bushes at half past four. I could have shot Lind sooner, before you arrived, without exposing myself to any risk, but God only knows what you would have imagined afterwards. You would never have believed that Mademoiselle Declique was guilty unless she proved it to you herself. Which she did in quite excellent fashion. Of course that has cost me a bullet hole in my shoulder, and if the sun had not been shining in her eyes the outcome of the duel would have been even sadder for me . . .’

I was not thinking about anything at that moment, simply listening.

Fandorin looked from me to the dead woman and narrowed his cold blue eyes. ‘What I do not know is what she intended to do with you,’ he said pensively. ‘Simply kill you? Or perhaps win you over to her side? What do you think? Could she have done that? Would a quarter of an hour have been enough for you to forget everything else for the sake of love?’

Something stirred inside me at those words. Not quite resentment, not quite anger – a bad kind of feeling, but faint, very faint. And at the same time I remembered that there was something that I simply, absolutely had to ask.

Ah yes.

‘What about Mikhail Georgievich? Where is he?’

A shadow flitted across Fandorin’s face – pale and tired but still very handsome.

‘Do you still have to ask? The boy was killed, I think on that day when you tried to save him by chasing after the carriage. Lind decided that he would take no more risks and chose Mademoiselle Declique – that is himself – as the intermediary instead of you. Or perhaps that is how it was planned from the very beginning. Our Emilie played her role quite brilliantly. To make everything completely credible she even led us to the vault, from which it was so convenient to escape through an underground passage. She would have got away with everything if not for my little surprise with the coachman.’

‘But on that day His Highness was still alive!’

‘What makes you think so? It was Lind, that is Emilie, who shouted up to us that the child was alive. The little mite had already been lying dead for days somewhere, at the bottom of a river or in an unmarked grave. And the most revolting thing is that before they killed the child, they cut off his finger while he was still alive.’

It was impossible to believe such things. ‘How can you know that? You weren’t there, were you?’

Erast Petrovich frowned.

‘But I saw the finger. It was clear from the droplets of dried blood that it had not been amputated from a dead body. That is why I continued to believe for so long that the child might be ill and drugged but was still alive.’

I looked at Emilie again, this time I looked long and hard. That is Doctor Lind, I told myself, the one who tortured and killed Mikhail Georgievich. But Lind was Lind, and Emilie was Emilie. There had not been any connection between them.

‘Ziukin! Afanasii Stepanovich, wake up!’

I slowly turned towards Fandorin, not understanding what else he wanted from me.

Erast Petrovich was grimacing in pain as he pulled on his frock coat.

‘I shall have to disappear. I have eliminated Lind, saved the Orlov and recovered Her Majesty’s jewels, but I was not able to save the grand duke. The emperor has no more use for me, and the Moscow authorities have cherished their animosity towards me for a long time. I shall go abroad; there is nothing more for me to do here. Only . . .’

He waved his hand through the air as if he wished to say something but could not make up his mind.

‘I wish to ask to ask you a favour. Please tell Xenia Georgievna. . . that I have thought a lot about our argument . . . and I am no longer so convinced that I was right . . . And give her this.’ He handed me a sheet of paper. ‘It is an address in Paris through which she can contact me. Will you give it to her?’

‘Yes,’ I said in a wooden voice, putting the paper away in my pocket.

‘Well, g-goodbye.’

The grass rustled as Fandorin scrambled up the slope. I did not watch him go.

He swore once – he must have jolted his wounded shoulder – but even so I did not look round.

I realised that I would have to collect up the scattered jewels: the tiara, the diamond clasp, the collar, the small bouquet, the fountain aigrette. But, most important of all, what was I to do with Mademoiselle Declique? Of course I could walk up to the park office and bring some attendants – they would carry the body up the slope. But I couldn’t leave Emilie here alone, for the ants to crawl over her and the flies to settle on her face.

On the other hand, even though she was not heavy (after all, I had already carried her in my arms), would I be able to carry her up such a steep slope on my own?

I supposed it was worth trying.

‘ . . . most profound gratitude to Divine Providence for having preserved this sacred symbol of the tsar’s power for Russia.’

His Majesty’s voice trembled and the sovereign paused in order to control a sudden surge of emotion. The empress made the sign of the cross, and the tsar immediately followed her example and also bowed to the icon hanging in the corner.

No one else present crossed themselves. Nor did I.

The royal audience had been granted to me in the large drawing room of the Hermitage. Despite the solemn significance of the event, only those privy to the circumstances of the drama that had been played out were present: members of the royal family, Colonel Karnovich and Lieutenant Endlung.